Dog, Stag, Beowulf
by mellowenglishgal
Summary: Standalone prequel to 'Fallen Knights'; glimpses into the Marauders' past, only, Vesper is one of the Marauders, mother of Remus's godchild, lover of Sirius Black, godmother to Harry Potter. This is how it began...
1. 01

**A.N.**: I didn't know what to title this, so I just thought…well, Padfoot, Prongs…and the combination of Vesper, 'bear' and Remus, 'wolf' led me to the amalgamated name Beowulf!

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_01_

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><p>"Dad!"<p>

"Mum!"

_Screech_!

"Where's my—?"

"I think I left my—!"

"Has anyone seen a purple tabby?"

"Put those gobstones away this _instant_, this is _not_ the time—"

"A _tarantula_—!"

"Look, there's her _boyfriend_—"

"Don't tease your sister!"

"You don't see steam-trains like _this_ anymore!"

"I want to go too, Daddy, can't I?"

"You're going to have so much fun!"

"Have _you_ seen a purple tabby?"

"_Love_ the new haircut!"

"Did you see the new Nimbus Seven Hundred in Quality Quidditch Supplies?"

"'Price on Request'. I almost _died_."

"I suggested to my mum she needn't buy me new books if she bought me the broom—didn't seem to go for it, for some reason!"

"Some reason!"

"Have you seen the new Filibuster fireworks? Wet-start, no-heat!"

"I can't _wait_ to go to Hogsmeade this year!"

"If I see you do that to your owl again—"

"Gideon—Fabian! Sandwiches! _No_, they're not corned-beef."

A pale, light-brunette little boy stood a little removed from the chaos of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, blinking very quickly, slim shoulders hunched toward his mother, his expression wary as people burst into gales of laughter and danced past, as if afraid one of them might jump at him. Tired-looking and pale, his wariness seemed at constant paradox with the enthusiasm glittering in his pale eyes; there was anticipation there, but also a tentative apprehension.

"Mum, what if nobody likes me?" he mumbled, glancing at his mother's leg; the brunette woman standing with his hand encased in hers, protectively, leaned down slightly, forcing her son to catch her eye, and her kind face broke into a very warm smile.

"They will, my dearest one. You are wonderful," she said gently, but with warmth and feeling, and she leaned in to kiss Remus's cheek. Remus bit his lip, feeling his cheeks warm and his throat burn, biting back something he desperately wanted to say but was afraid to.

"What if they find _out_?" he asked desperately, his voice choked with emotion, and a shiver stole over him. It wasn't very long until the full moon. Remus had been affected with lycanthropy since he was a very little boy—he couldn't remember anything else. But it didn't stop the pain, or lessen it. Every month was a fresh hell, and he feared it more than anything in the world. He feared it more than he did people at Hogwarts finding out what he was, and that was a very real, gripping fear he had been wrestling with since Professor Dumbledore had arrived on his family's doorstep, silver-bearded and _uncommonly_ kind.

"Remus, if you just stick to the precautions Professor Dumbledore has planned, nobody will ever know unless you tell them," Remus's dad said quietly, plucking at the knees of his trousers before squatting down, coming to eye-level with his son. Remus gazed at his dad, still grappling internally with the remembered pain of his last transformation, the anticipated pain of the next one, the fear that someone might find out what he was, and then peoples' reactions when everybody found out. There was pain in his dad's eyes, too; Remus recognised it more now than he used to. He understood that the look in his dad's dark eyes was _guilt_, because it had been because of his father not bending to the Death Eaters' demands that Remus had been bitten. Remus didn't blame him; he knew no parent wanted that for their child, and he also knew his dad would have taken the monthly torture from him if he could. His parents had tried everything.

Remus jumped as another young boy, skinny and messy-haired, bounded, gurgling with laughter, past, with two older adults in very handsome robes.

"Why can't first-years have their own brooms, Dad?"

"They have to teach you how to fly first, James," his dad chuckled, and James's shoulders slumped, his expression turning momentarily churlish.

"But I already _know_ how to fly. _You_ taught me everything you know about flying!" James exclaimed, staring up at his father. A little older than most of the parents ushering first-years onto the Hogwarts Express, James noticed, but he had always known his parents were older. They had waited a long time for a baby to expand their family; and he was it. If the Hogwarts letter hadn't said first-years weren't allowed their own brooms, James knew his dad would've bought him that new Nimbus Seven Hundred he had seen in the window-display at Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley. His dad had played Quidditch for Gryffindor—and James was dead set on following his dad's footsteps.

Beside his dad, James's mother stood, eyeing the scarlet steam-engine wistfully, older but dark-haired and still pretty, and her eyes turned misty when they settled on James. She gave him a tremulous smile and James rushed to her, banding his arms around her waist as he buried his face in her stomach, squashing his glasses. His mother had been quite sad lately; he thought it was because James was leaving for a whole seven years. She and Dad always said they'd waited a long time for him, and now they said he was already leaving them.

"I'll write to you every week," he said, his voice muffled by tea-dyed red silk taffeta.

"And make me wild with envy that I can't be there to enjoy it with you," his mother chuckled softly, sifting her ringed fingers through his rambunctious black hair.

"But you've already _been_ to Hogwarts," James said, removing his face from her stomach and gazing up at his mother. "You already had your adventures." His mother gave him a smile, crinkled her nose as she tried again to flatten his hair, gave it up for a lost cause and popped a kiss on his forehead, before leaning to hug him.

"Don't slouch, Sirius!" Dark-haired and already quite good-looking, the young boy being snapped at rolled his eyes, sighing, eyeing the scarlet steam-engine, his insides ballooning. He was _going_. He was leaving Grimmauld Place. He didn't have to go back for another _year_. No more depraved Bella, no more snotty Cissy—no more listening to his mother and aunt and uncle wailing and cursing Andromeda. A very much smaller boy fidgeted where he stood, resting his pale face against his mother's arm; she had her hand clamped around his, but he didn't seem to mind. Dark eyes rested imploringly on the elder brother, but Sirius didn't notice, too busy watching a sprawling, exotically-dressed, rambunctious-looking family only a few paces away, and aching at the way this family was laughing raucously and teasing each other.

There wasn't a mother, though, that Sirius could tell. _Probably __why __they__'__re __having __so __much __fun_, he thought, making the mistake of casting a glance at his own mother, who scowled at him. At his head, rather, not Sirius's face. "Did you forget to comb your hair?"

"No," Sirius answered shortly, turning his back on his mother again, canting his head to one side thoughtfully as he watched the other family. The girls were all dressed in fabulous arrays of robes, a mixture of Russian court-dress and medieval Middle-Eastern in cut, and shimmering with sumptuous silks, with exquisite details: little shimmering tassels; beaded sashes around their waists; long, split muscovite sleeves revealing fitted under-sleeves of diaphanous tulle embroidered at the lace-reinforced cuffs, with tiny gold toggles at the wrists: a sleeveless bolero of sturdy silk, with a high-standing collar heavily sewn with embroidery and tiny white pearls that glinted in the sun, with feathery-tasselled clasps. Lace peeked out from the bottom of the hems of the robes, and he got glimpses of it at their necklines, from under-dresses they probably went mucking about in. The girls—there were three, of all different ages—all wore the same exact robes, fashioned in the same shades of sugar-pink, dark iced lilac and warm sage-green, and they each wore at their throats a string of delicate, creamy-white pearls and a tiny gold chain that glittered beneath the neck of their robes. At their wrists, each wore a gold bracelet glittering with charms, and they each wore their hair the way his cousins used to; the hair teased at the crown, clasped with a ribbon, flowing down their backs.

_No __wonder __Mother __and __Father __stopped _here _when __we __arrived_, Sirius thought disdainfully, sighing heavily as Regulus fidgeted again. _These __are __the __only __obvious __purebloods __for __miles __around_. The unbound hair, the varying lengths of the skirts of their robes—each girl's skirt-hem the same height above the ground as the others'—the jewellery and the exquisite tailoring of the robes spoke of pureblood money.

But they weren't like any pureblood family who'd be friends with _his_ family, Sirius thought dejectedly, watching the middle girl.

The three girls were all sisters, Sirius guessed, because they all looked vaguely familiar to each other, though by no means similar; the eldest of the girls was tall and good-looking, with a sweet little nose; she had dark-auburn hair that glittered copper, red and gold in the sunshine, and her eyes were a very brilliant blue. She had a sweet smile and laughed loudly with the two old men who accompanied the group of children. The littlest girl reminded Sirius of a cherub; she had the older girl's sapphire eyes, but to such proportions that teacup saucers would have looked smaller beside them. Set in a pretty face, she had dark hair, not auburn, and she was laughing giddily with a little boy who was probably only a few years younger than Sirius—though not as young as Regulus, good-looking but with eyes of two different colours, and dark, curling hair.

The girl Sirius's eyes kept going to was the middle one. Perhaps it was because she and the elder of the two men had come pelting through the barrier, squealing "_Wheeee_!" at the top of their lungs while she stood atop her trunk on a luggage-trolley, and he had hopped onto the bars of the trolley, freewheeling through the barrier, both laughing their heads off. But it was mostly because she was nice to look at, even though she looked…_strange_, really. She had hair so startling a silvery-blonde it appeared to twinkle and glow in the sunshine, and especially when she was grinning like a loon, yet her complexion wasn't colourless like Cissy's—her skin looked like gold-dust had been mixed in with honey and simmered with a few sticks of cinnamon, and painted over something that glowed softly golden. Unlike her sisters, her eyes weren't blazing sapphire blue, but they were _a_ blue, paler and somehow warmer.

She was bounding about the group, laughing brightly, teasing her younger brother and sister, poking her fingertips through the bars of a cage, smiling at the handsome owl within, bursting into raucous fits of giggles with the two men, and seemed to have an answer for everything they said to her.

"It says right here on my letter—'first years may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad'," Vesper said, brandishing her much-pored-over Hogwarts letter at her father and great-uncle. "It says _nothing_ about what _kind_ of cat. They didn't close any loopholes saying we're not allowed to bring Big Cats, so _why_ can't I have a leopard?"

"Oh, Vesper!" her father chuckled, shaking his head and grinning handsomely. Grey-haired but still good-looking after ten children—six of them grown adults—he was, and there was no denying it, _cool_. A scar ran the right-side of his face, tugging neatly at the corner of his eye, and his close-cropped hair was as silvery blonde as his daughter's. There was that indefinable air of being _very_ good-humoured and powerful, the laughter-lines at the corners of his eyes far more noticeable in his tanned face than the scar, his white grin glittering in the sun, watching the youngest four of his children work themselves into hysteria, not stemmed but rather encouraged by their great-uncle Septimus: Vesper was bounding around, overexcited and breathless; Edessa, laughing and waving to friends over the heads of the crowd, while she chatted with Uncle Septimus; the twins chasing and being chased by Vesper, as excited as she was, their laughter pealing through the crowded platform, attracting attention and causing smiles.

"Uncle Septimus has _four_ leopards!" Vesper said beseechingly, making her gold-flecked Scottish-heather eyes widen endearingly.

"Yes, well, Uncle Septimus is a eccentric old—"

"I'm standing right here, nephew," Septimus said smoothly, his dark eyes twinkling; if Silenus was cool, Septimus was…the godfather of all that was eccentric, free-spirited, fun-loving, dare-devilish and glamorous. Though older than Silenus by many years—Silenus the firstborn of a firstborn, Septimus being that first-born's sixth younger brother—Septimus had that unquenchable air of being extremely young and exuberant at heart. A great-uncle, he was a consummate prankster, and was Silenus' daughters' favourite playmate and friend. Septimus was the black-sheep, the bad-egg, the professional-Quidditch-playing miscreant, reckless adventurer and serial womaniser.

As a young man, he heard some rhythm and blues records, travelled to the most exotic places where the most beautiful women lived, played professional Quidditch and enjoyed everything that entailed, made friends with influential and eccentric people, learned many languages, discovered many interests, started many hobbies, experimented with many liberal ideas, and had never recovered. He was, in short, a man's man, but one Silenus didn't think his daughters would have been the same without.

"Yeah, so watch your step, Daddy-o," Vesper said, wagging a finger at her dad threateningly, arching one dark, neat eyebrow, as Uncle Septimus chuckled. Vesper turned to her younger twin-siblings. "Balian, Diane—why are you not _weeping_? You're not going to see me for an entire _year_!"

Mismatched-eyed Balian and the "angel baby" Diane exchanged a glance, freezing in their pursuit of the purple tabby circling all their ankles, then broke out into a sort of war-cry, yelling and tapping their hands over their mouths, whirling around in midair as they danced a circle around their family, chanting, "_Gone, __Gone, __Gone__—__FREE!_"

"Well, you'll both be getting Hogwarts toilet-seats for Christmas!" Vesper exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"_Gone, __Gone, __GONE_—"

"_OI_—look, Edie, it's your _boyfriend_," Vesper said, and immediately the twins stopped their war-cry to clamber over the trunks piled onto a luggage-trolley, gazes intent on a handsome red-haired boy who had just appeared.

"Shut up," Edessa blushed. The good-looking boy grinned, striding up to Edessa, who was blushing and casting quick glances at the other members of her family—her father and great-uncle were stood leaning over the trunks, their chins in their elbows, grinning lazily as they observed, the twins gawping openly, Vesper grinning as she walked right up to Fabian Prewett, staring him right in the face. Rather ungainly tall for her age, Vesper stared at him.

"Well, you're _actually_ quite yummy. What on earth are you doing with Edessa?" Vesper asked, jerking a thumb at her sister, who rolled her eyes in amusement. She knew Vesper was only teasing. "She's not much of a catch—she's a _prefect_."

"So am I," the boy said, and Vesper staggered back into the trunks, wide-eyed.

"Oh, god, they're multiplying!" she panicked, hopping onto the luggage-trolley and trying to climb over her siblings to get away.

"Do you want to sit with us, Vesper?" Edessa asked. Vesper rose up between Septimus and grinning, bright-eyed Diane, her expression that of the utmost incredulous incomprehension.

"Sit with a _prefect_, the _shame_ of my _flesh_?" Vesper exclaimed passionately, attracting the attention of people crowded on the platform around them. Edessa, used to this treatment from all home-bound members of her family for the last fortnight, rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest, but her lips twitched, and she couldn't hide a smile. "_I__'__d __rather __die_! I can see that it'll be up to _me_ to restore the family name!"

"You've got your work cut out for you," Fabian said, slinging an arm around Edessa's shoulders and grinning easily.

"She's well-supplied for it, don't worry," Uncle Septimus said, and Vesper shared a mischievous grin with him. Oh, the things he had told her about Hogwarts—things very few people knew!

"Oh _no_, you didn't give her your home-brewed cider too," Edessa groaned, her eyes widening beseechingly as her arms fell to her sides.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Septimus said loudly, glancing at the crowd, pulling faces. "I'd never give that stuff to children, it's far too potent."

"I like it with popcorn," Vesper said idly, leaning against the handle of the luggage-trolley. Septimus's face fell animatedly, and he flicked her ear.

"You're making me look like an eccentric, immoral great-uncle in front of all these strangers!"

"You _are_ an eccentric, immortal great-uncle!" Vesper laughed suddenly, swatting his hand away as he attempted to pull the ribbon from her hair. "That's why you're our _favourite_. Now, about that leopard-cub…" Edessa rolled her eyes and turned to talk to Fabian—and was interrupted when Vesper caught the twins' attention and jerked her head towards the couple; they swarmed en-masse and started pestering Edessa, flinging question after question at Fabian, demanding what his intentions were, with a reminder that whatever he did to Edessa, "Daddy and Uncle Septimus will do to _you_".

"It's been a while since we dropped the last one off," Septimus said thoughtfully, standing beside Silenus; he was watching the way Fabian's jaw was slowly but surely continuing to drop to his knees as Vesper kept up a continuous stream of questions and observations, threats and sweet, abrupt laughs. The last child they had shepherded through to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters had been Edessa herself, a shy and self-conscious girl with fears of homesickness and being teased for her auburn hair and her "humble snub" nose. "Oh, that I were young again and could enjoy it myself." He gazed wistfully at the scarlet Hogwarts Express, remembering _his_ first journey, with pockmarked Elphy and bright Albus, having epic chess battles and roaring with laughter, trading Chocolate Frog cards and making predictions about who would get their faces on one first. They'd all bet Albus, of course; Septimus had beaten him only because of that…that _terrible_ summer.

"Well, live vicariously through Vesper," Silenus said, watching his daughter with wide eyes that seemed to be seeing something else. Septimus knew he would never admit it, but of all his children, Vesper was Silenus' favourite; she was her mother. Fierce to laugh, first to comfort, she was exuberance bottled into a very pretty girl, given a hefty amount of magical talent and an incorrigible taste for trouble that Septimus himself had helped cultivate. "She's more than enough like you to get up to the same trouble you used to."

"One hopes so. Some of my fondest memories are of detentions," Septimus said wistfully.

"That's because you used to sneak off with Perenelle!"

"Yes—as I said, very fond memories," Septimus smirked, and did a little double-take when he counted only three Cœurvaill children clamouring around the luggage-trolley, teasing Edessa's boyfriend. "Oh—your Octavian is on the move." He pointed to where Vesper's unmistakeable twinkling silvery-blonde hair swished away, bouncing jauntily toward a small, fair-haired boy who looked distinctly wary and tired.

"Hello! Are you a first year?" Vesper asked, beaming at the boy. She had seen him watching her from beside his trunk.

"Yes," he answered quietly, glancing up at the lady beside him as if for confirmation.

"Me too," Vesper grinned. "I'm Vesper Cœurvaill. What's your name?"

"Remus Lupin."

"Cool name. Do you want to sit together?" Vesper asked excitedly. "The house-elves put together a huge tuck-box for me to share."

"_You_ have house-elves?" Remus's eyes widened.

"My great-uncle Septimus does. He converted a whole wing of his house into a sanctuary for dismissed house-elves," Vesper said quickly, pointing to her great-uncle. "He's a barmy old codger," she sighed affectionately. "That's why I love him so much. Anyway, _do_ you want to sit together? We can play chess."

"I don't know how to play—"

"I'll teach you, come on—"

"Er, can I just say goodbye to my mother and father first?" Remus asked, laughing a little. Vesper did a double-take, turning to stare at the woman standing beside Remus.

"_You_ have a mother?" she whispered, awed, as she stared up at the lady.

"Er, yes…don't you?" Remus asked quietly.

"No," Vesper sighed lightly. "She died when I was six. My brother and sister," she gestured over her shoulder at the twins, who were now doing their war-dance around Edessa and Fabian, "caught dragon pox and she accidentally contracted it. She wouldn't let anybody else take care of them. She was the head Healer at St Mungo's, you know. The irony isn't lost on any of us. So… Mrs Lupin, hullo," Vesper said, offering her hand to the lady. "I'm Remus's new friend, Vesper."

"Hello, dear," Mrs Lupin chuckled, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Mr Lupin, hello," Vesper said, shaking the hand of the man who looked like an older, darker version of Remus.

"That's quite a firm handshake, young lady," Mr Lupin smiled.

"Uncle Septimus says a good handshake is part of a good first impression," Vesper said, smiling, before her expression turned peculiar, "though most people's first impressions of Uncle Septimus is that he's mad as a hatter." She turned excitedly to Remus. "Did you know that expression comes from Muggles? Milliners used to use so much mercury they'd lose their minds! I told my sister Ambrosia—she designs dressrobes—that she'd better be careful—"

"Or she'll start sending people round the twist just like her little sister," her father's voice sounded richly, thick with amusement, and large hands laid heavily on her slim shoulders. Vesper beamed up at him.

"We all have our unique gifts, Daddy." Mr and Mrs Lupin laughed; Remus's lips twitched, his eyes sparkling.

"Yes, indeed we do," Silenus agreed. Septimus approached, tugging gently on Remus's sleeve, and leaned in to whisper theatrically behind his hand to the young boy, "We find it's wisest never to let Vesper have Butterbeer _and_ Fizzing Whisbees at the same time."

"So, are you still not going to tell me what you and Septimus were whispering about last night?" Silenus asked his eighth-born child. She blinked up at him innocently with beautiful, gold-flecked sage-blue eyes.

"Oh, don't worry, Daddy, it was nothing that doesn't threaten everything that is good and decent in the world," Vesper said, waving an elegant hand.

"I guessed that," Silenus rolled his eyes; the Lupins were chuckling. "I want specifics. I'm concerned I'll have to home-school you when you're expelled."

"I'm not going to be _expelled_!" Vesper gawped incredulously, as if he had insinuated the very worst slander on her character. She jerked a thumb at her great-uncle. "Septimus is one of the school governors." She poked young Remus Lupin with her elbow, adding confidentially, "It's always good to have friends in high places," and winking.

"You are terrible!" Silenus chuckled.

"Anyway, we're not friends, we're family," Septimus chipped in, at which point Vesper's entire face slackened, her jaw dropping, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.

"_You_ promised we're friends! _Best_ friends!" she gasped. Pulling herself together, her sharp little shoulders thrown back, she tossed her hair and marched off towards the train. "Excuse me, I've now got _three_ Hogwarts toilet-seats to wrap for Christmas."

"Oi!" Septimus caught the hood of her robes, and jerked her back, making her make choking noises and flail her arms as she lost balance. Staggering upright, she righted her robes and gave her great-uncle a very arch look. The Veela ancestor poked through every few generations; amongst Silenus's children, two had inherited the _hair_, and more than a fair number had inherited the somewhat temperamental temper. Vesper took it to an eccentric and often hilarious place. "Come back here, you little minx!" Septimus leaned down, hands on his knees, eye-to-eye with the great-niece he adored above all the others. "Would I have told anybody but my _best_ friend all those secrets?"

"I don't know," Vesper said archly, looking away from her great-uncle. She fixed him a look from the corner of her eye. "Did you tell…the _Others_?"

"Those humourless poppycocks!" Septimus scoffed, waving an elegant hand. "They're all overachieving prefects. The _shame_ of having _three_ Head Girls in the family!" He put a hand to his forehead, shaking his head, and Vesper reached up to pat his shoulder.

"Don't worry, I'll put an end to that," she said soothingly.

"Oh, I have no doubt, my dear," Septimus grinned. "No doubt!"

A whistle sounded over the ruckus on the platform, and Mrs Lupin jumped.

"Oh! That's the warning!" she gasped, her eyes widening as she looked down at her son. She glanced, with a smile, at Vesper. "You two had better get on the train."

"Come on!" Vesper grinned, grabbing Remus's hand, and he laughed as she dashed through people.

"_OI_!" Silenus called, and Vesper jerked to a stop, eyebrows raised expectantly. Silenus beckoned her back, Remus laughing. Hugs and many kisses were given around, Mr Lupin pausing for a little longer to hug his son the second time, Mrs Lupin gazing tearfully into her son's eyes before giving him a goodbye-kiss.

"Come on, Remus!" Vesper said, practically dancing on the spot in her excitement, sending the carriage-door covetous glances. When Remus extricated himself from another hug from his mother, Vesper stuck out her hand and grabbed his, and as the last of the trunks and owl-cages were loaded onto the train, Vesper asked, "Do you collect Chocolate Frog cards?"

"Yes!" Remus said, his voice more excited now than it had been when he and his parents arrived; he was gazing at Vesper as if nothing more wondrous had ever been seen. She laughed so hard, it was impossible not to grin too, and she spoke so quickly and with such enthusiasm that Remus found his anxieties abating, _because __she __had __said __she __was __his __friend_! "I do!"

'_I__'__m __Remus__'__s __new __friend, __Vesper_', she'd said! Remus had never had a friend before, not in his whole life.

"Do you have Morgause?" Vesper asked, somewhat impatiently; she was almost hopping from one foot to the other, anxiously awaiting the moment when the last trunk would be lifted through the door and she could hurtle onboard. "My mum was named after her; I'm still looking for the card."

"I don't have Morgause," Remus frowned, mentally going through all his Chocolate Frogs. Chocolate was the one thing everybody made sure their house was stocked full of; before his transformations, after his transformations, the best remedy for some of his aches and lingered mental pains was chocolate. His dad said it was one of the best magical cures there was, so Remus had a _lot_ of Chocolate Frog cards. "But I think I might have your uncle," he said shyly, glancing at the elder of the two men who were still standing, chatting to Remus's parents, while the little boy and girl waved frantically from the luggage-trolley, beaming. "Is he Septimus Cœurvaill?

"Yes!" Vesper grinned.

"Did he _really_ play Quidditch for England?" Remus breathed. His father hadn't even been _alive_ when Septimus Cœurvaill was a professional player, but the man standing talking to his dad didn't look _old_. And he was wearing a dragon-hide jacket and pointy boots!

"Yup," Vesper said, grinning. "For _years_ and years. When he retired he was the oldest player in the League. But the best. Septimus compares himself to port. The older, the better."

"Did he _really_ win seven consecutive Quidditch World Championships?" Remus asked. It was a world record. Vesper grinned again.

"Yup," she said, "and he had a different wife for every single one but the last two," she snorted.

"He was married _six_ _times_?" Remus gaped, turning to stare at the man.

"Yeah. Why would you _possibly_ want more than one wife?" Vesper asked, shaking her head.

"No idea," Remus said, his eyebrows raised. He wasn't even going to have _one_ wife, let alone six. One of the platform guards came up and down the train, slamming doors, and Vesper quickly slid the window of theirs down, sticking her torso out of the window.

"_BYE!_" she bellowed at the top of her lungs, waving frantically, Remus's pale, tired face lighting up in giggles behind her, tugging on the back of her robes so she didn't fall out of the window. "_Wish __me __luck __as __you __wave __me __goodbye! __Cheerio, __here __I __go, __on __my __way!__Till __we __meet __once __again, __you __and __I, __wish __me __luck __as __you __wave __me __goodbye!_" Septimus conducted his niece with his wand, raised like a baton, and those nearest laughed as they caught snatches of the song piped through clear, loud lungs. She was a little, awkward girl too tall for her age, with knobbly knees and mismatched hair and complexion, but she was exuberance personified!

"She is her mother," Silenus said sadly, feeling his shoulders slump and stomach crumple, his face slackening. Of all their children, Vesper most resembled the mother she hadn't known since she was six years old. She laughed the fiercest, was the sweetest of comforts, and was ten pounds of fun in a five pound bag! They had had to confiscate her brand-new wand the same week they bought it in Diagon Alley, because Silenus had found her levitating Balian, to raucous laughter from her brother and great-uncle, cheers and applause from the house-elves, and Edessa and Diane's uncontrollable giggles.

Septimus glanced at Mr and Mrs Lupin. "He looks less peaky already," he remarked, watching the way young Remus was smiling at Vesper. Mr and Mrs Lupin both started, staring at him. He gave them a kind smile. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to enquire after a Whomping Willow from one of my foreign contacts."

"Oh, he—I—we—" They stared, white-faced and appalled, from Septimus to Silenus.

"Don't worry," Silenus smiled. "I already know." Mrs Lupin looked like she was on the verge of tears that someone had found out so soon that her son was a werewolf—that they were allowing him to board a train full of children, children he would be taking lessons with, sharing a dormitory with.

"And, you can bet when Vesper finds out—because she will!—she won't give a damn," Septimus said, his head canted to one side as he waved back at his great-niece, who wobbled and nearly fell out of the window, before young, tired Remus laughed and hoisted her back by her robes.

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><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: I've been writing another story—_Fallen __Knights_—about a girl OC named Tristram, the daughter of Sirius Black and a girl named Vesper, and chatting to my friend about it, I just couldn't get Sirius's and Vesper's story out of my head, so I'll be writing snippets of their lives together.

Vesper is the fourth Marauder, in _my_ HP canon-'verse. Pettigrew does become an Animagus, but he didn't sign the Map; that was between Remus, Sirius, Vesper and James, because the rat was too small to keep up with them on their full-moon adventures.


	2. 02

**A.N.**: Oh, and for those who'll notice some of the 'Muggle' references, in my head I always set HP stories taking place in the year in which we're living. Saves me trying to calculate: I'm a _History_ student! And, based on the fact that my _Fallen __Knights_ story is set in 2011, with HP and Tristram being fifteen going on sixteen, I calculated that the Marauders start school in 1987, so… Yeah, read on!

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_02_

* * *

><p>"Come on, let's go and find somewhere to sit!" Vesper grinned, as the platform receded from view, the twins no longer visible waving frantically from the end of it. Remus seemed quite perfectly happy to let Vesper drag him along behind her; they found a compartment with only one other occupant, a small girl with flaming red hair and very vibrant green eyes that were shot with red.<p>

"Hello," Vesper said brightly, plonking herself down on the seat opposite her; she had seen this girl on the platform, with her parents; they had been dressed like Muggles. "I saw you on the platform. Why're you crying?" The girl raised her sleeve to her eyes and brushed tears away, taking a shaky breath.

"M-my sister called me a…a—_freak_!" she cried, tears splashing down her cheeks. Remus sat awkwardly beside her, looking like he wanted to pat her on the back or give her a hug, but was too shy to do so.

"Sisters are like that," Vesper said lightly. "How many do _you_ have?"

"Only _one_," the girl frowned bemusedly. Vesper blinked, taken aback.

"Well what're you crying for!" Vesper exclaimed. "I've got _eight_. And one brother. I'm Vesper. This is Remus. Who are you?"

"I'm Lily," she said, sniffing.

"Your parents are Muggles, aren't they?" Vesper smiled happily. She and Uncle Septimus were obsessed with Muggle culture—particularly music, and films, and books. Lily nodded. "I recognised them by their clothes. Have you ever been to the cinema? My uncle Septimus took us to see _Dirty __Dancing_."

"I've seen that," Lily sniffed, her eyes brightening.

"That Patrick Swayze," Vesper sighed, swiping her fingers through the air like claws. "I could eat him up." Lily hiccoughed a little laugh, and Remus's lips twitched.

"Here, have a Chocolate Frog," Vesper said, digging things out of her robes pockets, emptying them onto the seat beside her: miniature chess-pieces; Muggle boiled peanut sweets and sherbet straws; a handful of sickles and galleons; a little pot of blackcurrant-liquorice lip-balm; some gobstones; a crystallised dew-specked sprig of forget-me-nots (which was really a Shield Charm spun into solid); a miniature travel 'Scrabble' set Septimus had given her as a stocking-stuffer for Christmas; a silver filigree case in which two family photographs were kept safe; a handful of handwritten letters addressed to her, from each of her sisters and Balian, to open when she was tucked up in her Gryffindor dormitory; a Muggle 'Pentax' camera and rolls of spare film; and a pocket transistor radio; several glossy and tightly-rolled magazines bound with very slender ribbon; a little set of white-polka-dot fuchsia knitting-needles and a tangled bundle of yarn; and, at last, a handful of Chocolate Frogs.

"What else have you got hidden in those pockets?" Remus asked, laughing, and Vesper grinned.

"_Not_ a leopard-cub, that's for sure," she pouted suddenly.

"Why would you want a leopard-cub?" Lily asked, astounded.

"Why wouldn't I? My uncle Septimus has _four_ full-grown leopards. They're going to miss me. I'm the only one who plays tug-of-war with them," Vesper said, and Lily's eyes popped. "Go on; help yourself to a Chocolate Frog. It'll make you feel better—but if you get Morgause, I'll trade you for her. Remus, you too." Remus smiled and tentatively picked up one Chocolate Frog box.

"They're not…_real_ frogs, are they?" Lily asked, looking a little squeamish as she turned a pentagonal box over in her hands.

"No, don't worry!" Vesper laughed. "See which card you've got."

"Card?"

"Oh! You wouldn't know," Vesper smiled. "Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, collectibles—they're all famous witches and wizards. I've got tonnes because my sisters all collected them, too." Lily unwrapped her Chocolate Frog and picked up the card, frowning at it.

"So _this_ is Dumbledore," she said softly, her eyes widening in wonder.

"Uncle Albus says he doesn't care if the entire world conspires against him and strips him of his Wizengamot title and ban him from the International Confederation of Warlocks—just that they don't take him off his Chocolate Frog card," Vesper beamed.

"_Uncle_ Albus?" They glanced at the door, which had slid open; a boy with untidy black hair and glasses was grinning at them all. "You're not Albus Dumbledore's _niece_?"

"No, not really; he's just known my uncle Septimus since _their_ first trip on the Hogwarts Express," Vesper said, indicating an empty seat, and the boy threw himself down into it. "They shared a dormitory together, and have been best-friends since, which I think is proof of a spectacularly strong constitution on Professor Dumbledore's part. Have a Chocolate Frog."

"Thanks," he said, grinning. "I'll pay you back later. My mum says a food-trolley comes down the train at lunchtime."

"Are you a first-year too?"

"Yeah, are you?"

"I think we all are," Remus said quietly, smiling shyly at the other boy.

"I'm Vesper," she spoke up. "That's Remus. And Lovely Lily over there is upset because her sister called her a name."

"I'm James," the untidy-haired boy said, offering his hand to Vesper and Remus; Lily was still reading the back of her Chocolate Frog card, biting her lip slightly.

"Is this the first years' compartment?" James hadn't shut the compartment door behind him, and as Vesper glanced up, she beamed, feeling her cheeks warm; she had seen this boy on the platform, being surly to his sour-looking parents, but _he_ wasn't sour-looking at all. He had the prettiest silver-grey eyes Vesper had ever seen—and her family was famous for its beauty.

"Must be!" James grinned.

"Come in, have a Frog," Vesper said, shoving some of her things back into her pockets, "But if it's Morgause—"

"She wants it," Remus broke in, chuckling.

"I want it _bad_," Vesper said, glancing at the new boy, who grinned wolfishly.

"Sirius," he said, offering his hand, and Vesper grinned as she shook it. He had nice big, warm hands, and though he smiled brilliantly, he was quite pale, almost paler than quiet Remus.

"I'm Vesper—that's Remus. This is James. And that's Lily." Pointing out the red-haired girl, Vesper frowned concernedly at the sight of Lily's trembling lower-lip. "Oh, come on, Lily, don't look so _glum_! We're going to _Hogwarts_! If you think your sister's bad, just think, _my_ sister is a _prefect_." She grimaced, and the boys laughed. Lily frowned bemusedly.

"Isn't being chosen as a prefect a good thing?" she asked.

"Depends if you like having fun or not," Vesper shrugged. "We were so _ashamed_ when Edessa got her badge this summer. You're welcome to have _her_ for your sister, if you like."

"—hear they're all on Nimbus Seven Hundreds," Vesper heard James say eagerly. "My dad's going to get tickets." Vesper whirled around in her seat.

"Are you talking about the Quidditch World Championship?"

"Of course! You follow Quidditch?"

"Who doesn't?"

"But you're a _girl_!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Vesper frowned at him, then her face flashed a beaming grin. "Who are your favourites to make it to the final?"

"I'd love it to be England," James said rapturously.

"My uncle says they're shambles—"

"Who's your uncle to know?"

"Septimus Cœurvaill," Remus spoke up quietly, then blinked quite quickly, as if surprised he had dared to speak up.

"_No_!" James gasped, turning to gape at Vesper.

"Well, he's my great-uncle, but yes," Vesper shrugged. "And my sister Melisende's husband Gareth just got signed to England, so—"

"_Your __brother-in-law __is __Gareth __Bower-Llewellyn_?"

"Yes. He's really nice. Way out of Mel's league—anyway, Gareth's one great player, but I reckon it'll be Scotland who gets through."

"What?" James laughed.

"Come off it!" Sirius scoffed, gazing at her in wide-eyed incredulity.

"That's never going to happen. They're a _baby_ team," James said emphatically.

"Yeah, they've only just been picked, but the coaching staff is trying a different scheme of drafting. Uncle Septimus told me all about it—normally, teams are put together based solely on individual players' strengths—the Scottish team has been put together so that there's chemistry between the players, and they can feed off each others' strengths," Vesper said.

"But, come on, Scotland's still a long-shot!" Sirius said, ignoring the dark-haired boy who climbed past, already in his Hogwarts robes, to sit by the window opposite Lily. "For the _final_?"

"Yeah, they're underdogs, but they're being thrown together with a lot of expectations. Uncle Septimus says if they pull their fingers out, they can do anything," Vesper shrugged, biting the leg off her Chocolate Frog. "Says the way the team's been put together, the way they're training, it's how he was chosen for England."

"I think it's gonna be—" Sirius began.

"Slytherin?" James' head jerked around. Vesper had heard it too; Lily and the boy who had walked in unnoticed had been talking quietly. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" He glanced at Vesper, and Remus, and Sirius, who was lounging on the seats opposite.

"Definitely!" Vesper said, shivering. Sirius didn't smile.

"My whole family have been in Slytherin," he said dully.

"Blimey!" James swore, as Vesper stared at Sirius. "And I thought you seemed alright." The boy grinned.

"Maybe I'll break the tradition," he said. "Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

"Uncle Albus says it's all up to your choice," Vesper said, frowning as she snapped a Siamese Chocolate Frog in half.

"I'm going into Gryffindor,'_where __dwell __the __brave __at __heart_', just like my dad," James grinned, brandishing an invisible sword, and Vesper grinned at him. The sallow-skinned boy made a soft, disparaging noise, and James's eyes narrowed as he turned on him, glaring past Vesper. "Got a problem with that?"

"No, if you'd rather be brawny than brainy—"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" Sirius said, his eyes narrowed, and James roared with laughter. Vesper laughed; Remus's lips twitched, trying not to smile as he shot a covert glance at the greasy-haired boy.

"There's no argument for saying Gryffindor are all brawn and no brain, because Albus Dumbledore was a Gryffindor, and he's the best wizard in the entire world," Vesper said, chewing on her Chocolate Frog. "I got Circe again—here, Lily, you can start collecting. And anyway—my sister Edessa says that all the Slytherin Quidditch team members are as overgrown and dim-witted as lobotomised trolls." Sirius roared with laughter, James's laugh adding to the noise, and Remus smiled, his eyes glittering. Vesper glanced at the greasy-haired boy. "So that about kills your theory that Slytherins are all smart. Besides, who would want to be in Slytherin? That was Voldemort's House."

The compartment went very quiet; Remus had gasped softly, James had jumped, Sirius _stared_ at Vesper, and the greasy-haired boy blinked very quickly.

"What?"

"_You _said _his_ name," James breathed incredulously.

"Oh, that. Daddy and Uncle Septimus say it's stupid to be afraid of a name," Vesper shrugged. "And so does Uncle Albus."

"It's not very respectful—" began the greasy-haired boy.

"_Respect_!" Vesper blurted, turning to stare at him, wide-eyed. "Don't you read the _Daily__Prophet_? D'you think he deserves _respect_ for all those atrocious things he's been doing? Setting a dirty great werewolf on someone's whole family?" Out of the corner of her eye, Vesper saw Remus twitch. "He killed all their children, and not with an Unforgiveable Curse; that would've been forgivable; they were all torn to _ribbons_. You think I should show Voldemort some _respect_for that?"

"Good thing you're looking to go into Slytherin," James said coolly, staring at the greasy-haired boy with evident distaste. "Seems like it's right up your street."

"I think you'd do better to find another compartment," Sirius growled dangerously. Lily had bristled in her seat as the greasy-haired boy stood.

"I'll come with you, Severus," she said loftily.

"_Oooooo_!" the boys taunted.

"See ya, Snivellus!" James called after them, and the compartment-door slammed shut.

"Who would _want_ to be in Slytherin?" Vesper scowled, turning to glance at where Lily had sat; two Chocolate Frog cards lay on the seat. Her shoulders slumped slightly. Reaching over to scoop up the cards, she sighed, glancing at James, and Sirius. "Talking of seeming alright; I thought _she_ was nice."

"Well, if she's friends with a Slytherin, she's no loss," Sirius said. "Trust me." He reached over and took the Chocolate Frog cards from Vesper's hands, looking them over, then handed them back, before settling languorously in his seat.

"So… Where are you hoping to go, once we get to school?" Remus asked tentatively, looking at Vesper.

"Well, Uncle Albus says your choice matters more than your abilities when it comes to the Sorting," Vesper said. "I want to go into Gryffindor. That's where both my parents and my uncle Septimus were. Most of my family's been in Gryffindor—a few in Ravenclaw, though."

"What about you?" Sirius asked Remus.

"I don't mind, as long as they don't change their minds and send me home," Remus mumbled, and James and Sirius both laughed.

"Yeah, I could see how that'd be a bummer," James laughed, snapping a Chocolate Frog in half and popping it into his mouth. "'Sorry, mate, you don't actually fit in any House, so—'" He mimed tossing a bucket of water out of the window, and Vesper laughed.

"I think I'd just refuse to leave if that happened," Sirius said idly.

"What, force them to Sort you?" James chuckled.

"Yeah—just so I don't have to go home," Sirius shrugged.

"Why would you not want to go home?" Vesper asked. She had wanted to go Hogwarts all her life, but when her letter had finally arrived, she had been forced to realise that she'd be leaving her daddy, and Uncle Septimus, and the twins, and the house-elves.

"My family are all bastards," Sirius said, and Vesper raised an eyebrow; Sirius swore and insulted his family with such ease. "They _adore_ my little brother, because he has _proper_ pureblood pride," he sneered, shaking his head.

"Ugh, you're a _pureblood_. I'm a blood-traitor myself," Vesper said proudly. "My whole family is, really, because we're all so liberal-minded."

"My family's medieval," Sirius said darkly.

"Well, you're welcome to share my family, if you want. There's more than enough of us to go around," Vesper said. "Speaking of sharing—help yourselves." She gestured to the other Chocolate Frogs.

"Which subjects are you all looking forward to?" Remus asked.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," Sirius spoke up.

"_Charms_," Vesper said thoughtfully. "Or maybe Transfiguration."

"Flying," James said definitively. "Hey—you said your sister mentioned the Slytherin Quidditch team. What's Gryffindor like?"

"Edessa says they've got a great captain, who plays Chaser, but she would say that, seeing as they're going out," Vesper rolled her eyes. "One of the other Chasers left in June, and the other leaves at the end of this year. They got new Beaters last year."

"It'd be cool to get on the team," James said.

"I thought first-years weren't allowed their own brooms," Remus frowned.

"Yeah," James said gloomily, "still, as soon as I can, I'm trying out."

"What position?" Sirius asked.

"Chaser. I'm pretty good."

"I'd go for Seeker myself," Vesper said, and Sirius grinned.

"All the glory, none of the effort," he chuckled, and Vesper grinned, shrugging.

"That's how I roll," she said idly, and he laughed.

"Quidditch robes would be a good cut on you," he said thoughtfully. "Anyway, you need to be slight to Seek."

"That's me. All bird-legs and hair," Vesper said, grabbing a fistful of hair and shaking it like a tassel; the boys laughed.

"Who's your favourite team?" James asked, nodding at Remus.

"I like the Magpies," Remus said quietly, shrugging his shoulders awkwardly. The other boys laughed, shaking their heads. "What about you two?"

"Falmouth Falcons!" James roared, raising his fists in the air triumphantly.

"Me too!" Sirius grinned.

"If I don't become an Auror or a curse-breaker," Vesper said thoughtfully, gazing into the distance someway above Remus's head, opening a Chocolate Frog box, "I think I'll join the Harpies." The boys laughed again, though Sirius's eyes twinkled.

"_Love_ those Grayson triplets," he grinned lazily.

"Triplets?" Remus frowned.

"Anemone, Aureole and Arianne," Sirius grinned again. "The Harpies' Chasers. They were just signed, last season—_all __blonde_. Here, I've got a calendar, my uncle gave it to me to brighten up my dormitory…" Sirius stood, all dark jeans and a midnight silk shirt, climbing onto the seat to open his trunk in the luggage-rack, kicking one leg out for balance as he rummaged through the contents of his trunk, and James gurgled a laugh and tugged on his wayward ankle, making Sirius squawk and cling to the luggage-rack, giving a bark-like laugh that was surprisingly deep for a boy of his age. Vesper laughed, and she saw Remus's eyes twinkling, and as Sirius exclaimed triumphantly, waving something colourful and glossy above his head, he slipped and uttered a broken yelp as he fell in a heap onto the compartment floor.

"Smooth," Vesper laughed, as Sirius gave his deep, bark-like laugh again. James offered him a hand up, and as Sirius sprawled back onto his seat beside Remus, showing him the steamy photographs of three beautiful blonde witches for June, July and August, the compartment door slid open. A plump, dimpled witch smiled in on them.

"Would you like anything from the trolley, dears?" she asked, smiling around at them all. Sirius's glossy calendar was thrown aside, pockets dug into deeply, coins chinking as they were exchanged for sweets. Remus bought Chocolate Frogs and a pumpkin pasty; James, a few chunks of treacle fudge and a handful of liquorice wands; Sirius, an assortment of various sweets; and Vesper paid for some Drooble's bubblegum, a small paper bag of still-warm, sweet kettle-corn and four bottles of chilled Butterbeer. Closing the compartment door as the witch ambled on with her trolley, Vesper smiled and handed the Butterbeers around. Remus's eyes glowed as he smiled at her, accepting the bottle, his gaze warm and unflinching, thanking her quietly and very sincerely, and Vesper plopped herself down into her seat and grinned, emptying several things out of her pockets, while James snickered over the scantily-clad ladies of the Holyhead Harpies team in Sirius's calendar, and Remus nibbled his pasty.

Whether Remus was shy by nature, it didn't last long; Sirius, James and Vesper were so enthusiastic and boisterous that he either had to join in or Disillusion himself into the upholstery. Very evidently the quietest of the four, he sat nervously on the edge of his seat, shyly pulling a brand-new deck of Exploding Snap cards out of his pocket, very tentatively asking if they wanted to play.

As the Hogwarts Express journeyed further north, the sunshine burning through the window, glittering off stream-sewn meadows and shimmering lakes, winding through dales, carving around hills and speeding over bridged valleys, their compartment got more and more boisterous; they had drunk their Butterbeers, and with his pumpkin pasty out of the way, Remus needed no more encouragement to help himself to the others' sweets, and as they experimented with Vesper's camera, taking photographs, they threw kettle-corn at each other with every lost round of Exploding Snap, aiming Every Flavour Beans from Sirius's box of them into each other's mouths to catch. Vesper got raspberry, bacon, sawdust, candied violet, salt, dandelion, mushroom, rhubarb crumble, salmon, custard and mayonnaise.

"Urgh!" Sirius grimaced comically, sticking his tongue out and shuddering, reaching for the packet of Fizzing Whizbees lying open near his thigh, chucking two in his mouth and hastily chewing.

"What was it?" James laughed.

"Jelly trifle—ugh, just the way _Kreacher_ makes it. I _hate_ trifle with jelly in it," Sirius grimaced, almost raking his fingernails over his own tongue.

"I got chocolate!" Remus said happily, chewing away.

"Yuck—_coffee_," James winced, quickly snapping a bite of liquorice wand and chewing vigorously.

"What d'you reckon this one is?" Vesper asked ominously, picking up a mucky-green bean.

"Dare you to try it," James said, nudging Sirius's boot with his own foot.

"How much'll you pay me?" Sirius grinned.

"Five knuts."

"That all? That could be bogey, or—or—" Vesper popped the bean in her mouth.

"Brussels sprouts," she said, swallowing the last of her Butterbeer. She glanced at Sirius, smirking, "Chicken."

"I'm not a chicken—you didn't give me a chance!" Sirius protested amiably, and Vesper laughed.

"Rule of my family; dig in or die," she said, and Sirius grinned wolfishly.

"I can't wait till the feast," he said, leaning back and massaging his stomach, picking idly at the packet of Fizzing Whizbees and Every Flavour Beans. "My cousin Andromeda says they have a feast on the first night, and on Halloween—mm, blackcurrant jam!"

"Edessa told me that, too," Vesper nodded. She bit her tongue, about to say something food-related. No, she would wait. No good wasting what could be such a wonderful surprise. Instead, she reached for a small handful of Bertie Bott's beans, and Remus shuffled the deck of Exploding Snap cards for another round. "What House is your cousin in?" she asked Sirius.

"Slytherin," Sirius sighed, watching Vesper shuffle the cards expertly; cards, puzzles, board-games of any kind were adored in her family, much as novels, the _Daily __Prophet_ and Muggle records were; they all fought over the crossword in the paper, and Vesper would miss their epic chess tournaments; they would put a dozen boards together and play a real chess war, and they had codes for their manoeuvres and spy-names and Army uniforms. Vesper was "Brigadier 'Blacklung' Shakespeare".

Sipping warm, homemade cider, eating popcorn and playing at Uncle Septimus's pale forget-me-not velvet-lined backgammon table, with its iridescent mother-of-pearl chips, wouldn't happen for another three months: nor would they have their clandestine meetings in the tiny, cluttered, silk-draped attic parlour, where Vesper, Uncle Septimus, Diane, Balian and some of the house-elves would put together a weekly 'portfolio' newspaper with nonsense stories; humorous anecdotes; caricatures; hand-coloured illustrations; articles about recent grand events such as birthdays and Bonfire Night firework displays; pleas for missing items of clothing and jewellery; amendments to the laundry schedule; the next trip to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade; the chess tournament league results; the selected teams for the next inter-family Quidditch championship; recipes and Chocolate Frog card barter offers.

"Dromeda's not like the others, though," Sirius added thoughtfully. "She's in Slytherin, but she's not all bad."

"How so?" James frowned at Sirius. He shrugged.

"She doesn't seem to mind the other Houses. Anyway, when I told her I doubted I'd be in Slytherin, she didn't seem to care," Sirius said. "Just told me my parents' opinions don't matter, just mine, when it comes to the people I like. She said parents don't always know what the hell they're talking about."

"She does sound nice," Vesper said, dealing the cards. "For a Slytherin."

"I think she has friends in other Houses," Sirius said thoughtfully. "I don't know how else she got hold of a Muggle novel, otherwise."

"Which novel?" Vesper asked brightly, staring at Sirius.

"Um… _Pride __and __Prejudice_," he said, frowning at the ceiling, then he snorted. "Appropriate, for Dromeda and her sisters."

"Did you read it?" Vesper asked curiously. Sirius nodded.

"Andromeda warned me not to let my parents catch me reading it, though," he said. "I liked it. Thought Bella and Cissy would've been perfectly cast as Mrs Hurst and Caroline Bingley. Andromeda would've been Elizabeth Bennett, I think."

"You really _did_ read it, and it's such a _girly_ novel," Vesper said, impressed; Sirius winked at her.

"Mrs Bennett was so ridiculously hysterical," Sirius grinned. "I loved her the most. And I wish _my _dad was like Mr Bennett. He was funny."

"At home, we sometimes put on short plays, me and by brother and sisters," Vesper grinned. "I _always_ play the eccentric characters. Uncle Septimus says I've got a knack for theatrics."

"Have you ever read Shakespeare?" Remus asked shyly.

Vesper grinned, softly but expressively reciting;

"_I __am __that __merry __wanderer __of __the __night.__  
>I <em>_jest __to __Oberon __and __make __him __smile__  
>When <em>_I __a __fat __and __bean-fed __horse __beguile,__  
>Neighing <em>_in __likeness __of __a __filly __foal:__  
>And <em>_sometime __lurk __I __in __a __gossip's __bowl,__  
>In <em>_very __likeness __of __a __roasted __crab,__  
>And <em>_when __she __drinks, __against __her __lips __I __bob__  
>And <em>_on __her __wither'd __dewlap __pour __the __ale_..."

"The bard with the beard!" Vesper grinned. "Uncle Septimus loves him; he always takes us to the theatre whenever he can get good tickets."

"I've never read Shakespeare," Sirius said, looking interested.

"Oh, he is _excellent_," Vesper said. "Snap! I'll lend you some of his plays, if you want; I brought all my favourite Muggle things with me."

"You know—I think you're right; I think you _will_ break your family tradition," James said thoughtfully, watching Sirius with a faintly shrewd expression behind his flashing glasses.

"I like Muggle stuff," Sirius shrugged carelessly. "Don't own much of it myself, but Andromeda gave me one of her records when she caught me going through her room this summer."

"What record?" Vesper asked.

"Fleetwood-something," Sirius said, frowning peculiarly as he thought of the right name.

"Fleetwood _Mac!_" Vesper exclaimed with a small squeak, squirming in her seat as she tucked her legs beneath her and accepted the wad of cards Remus handed her. "I like 'Gypsy' and 'Big Love'. Which are your favourites?"

"'Go Your Own Way', definitely," Sirius grinned lazily. "And 'Little Lies'."

"I've never heard 'em," James said, glancing from Sirius to Vesper.

"I brought my record-player; we can listen to them," Vesper beamed. "I got it two Christmases ago. It's red; it used to belong to my sister Ioveta, but I painted the Gryffindor lion on it in gold this summer."

"Cool!" James grinned. "Already showing proper House spirit!"

"Vesper doesn't know how to do things halfway," someone said, and Vesper grinned as she glanced up at the open compartment door. Edessa stood there, wearing her Hogwarts robes, a shiny lion badge with a 'P' superimposed on it flashing in the lamplight; Vesper hadn't realised it had grown so dark outside the lights had been lit.

"Careful, boys, put away all the contraband fireworks and Stink Pellets; a prefect is in the house!" Vesper smirked, and Edessa rolled her eyes as the boys all glanced at her, grinning.

"We'll be drawing into Hogsmeade station within a half hour," she said, smiling warmly at the three boys. "I've been making the rounds; you should change into your robes. And don't worry about collecting your trunks and owls—first years' belongings are taken up to the castle. You're to find Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper, when we get to the station; he'll take you up to the school. Enjoy the last few games of Exploding Snap. And make sure you put all those sweets away, or you won't see them again." Edessa reached out to rumple Vesper's hair, making her squeal in annoyance as she ducked out of reach, and Edessa chuckled as she disappeared, closing the compartment door behind her.

"Was that your sister?" James asked instantly, eyes wide, and Vesper nodded.

"That's Edessa."

"The _prefect_. I saw her badge. My mum's still got hers; she and Dad were Heads when they were in their seventh years," James said, his eyes bright. "She was very pretty."

"All my sisters are beautiful," Vesper said loyally, not exactly speaking untruthfully; she was part of a _very_ handsome family.

"Shall we change, then?" Remus asked quietly, glancing nervously between them. "Into our robes, I mean."

"Yeah, why not?" James said brusquely, hopping up from his seat, and there was a few moments' rummaging in trunks, elbowing each other accidentally while they searched and struggled to change in the somehow much smaller space, knees and elbows flying everywhere; they had to extricate James from his robes, which seemed intent on strangling him; coughing, spluttering, his glasses were half dangling off his ear when his head finally emerged from the neck of his robes, Sirius's bark-like laugh punctuating their relentless giggles, as Remus frowned at his tie.

"All this ruddy effort, we're only gonna be spending about three hours in them, at most!" James said indignantly, as Sirius grabbed Remus by the tie and, tongue between his teeth in concentration, he tied the other boy's tie for him. Remus gave him a shy smile, straightened his robes, and folded his clothes neatly into his trunk, with his Exploding Snap deck and the Chocolate Frog cards he had to add to his collection.

They divvied out the remaining sweets equally between them, and spent the last fifteen minutes of the journey chatting nervously, not bothering to suppress grins of ecstatic delight at the prospect of being only a little way off from their Sorting and first year at Hogwarts.

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><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: This and the first chapter were originally one document, and my motto is 'If you can't write something properly, don't write it at all', which is why I condemned the _Twilight_ series (it does not deserve the term 'saga', as that hints at such legendary awesomeness of _The __Lord __of __the __Rings_ and _Harry __Potter_). And which is why this story is probably going to be _long_. But long means full of detail! Please review!


	3. 03

**A.N.**: For _ElizabethAnneSoph_, who has reviewed faithfully so far! Another long, long chapter (twelve pages by Word's count!). The Sorting Ceremony.

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_03_

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><p>The rich plum sky was glittering with tiny silver stars when everybody disembarked the Hogwarts Express, now blood-red instead of scarlet in the darkness; lamps glowed gold along the tiny platform, and everywhere, students in robes pushed and shoved and called out to missing friends, and over the din of voices came one deep, clear voice, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"<p>

"Hi Hagrid!" Fabian Prewett called, waving energetically, with a broad grin, and Vesper saw Edessa beaming in the same direction as her boyfriend; as Hagrid called a happy "'Lo, Fabian!" back, a lantern bobbed over the heads of the crowd.

"_Whoa_," James said, eyes popping behind their glasses, and Vesper grinned as she recognised the enormous man bearing the lantern. Twice as tall as any normal man, and three times as wide, his face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of black hair and a wild, tangled beard. His eyes glittered in the lamplight, glinting like beetles under all the hair. Vesper grabbed the sleeves of Sirius and Remus; James grabbed the back of her robes as she surged through the crowd of much larger students, coming up beside Hagrid. Vesper suddenly felt very small, as she had done on the only other occasion she had met Rubeus Hagrid. Edessa had introduced them in Diagon Alley weeks ago, when they had gone to buy Vesper's new school things, and Hagrid had been buying Flesh-Eating Slug-Repellent for the Hogwarts kitchen-gardens.

"Hello!" Vesper grinned brightly, and the dark, beetle-like eyes crinkled in a grin.

"Vesper! Hullo! An' who've you got 'ere?" Hagrid asked.

"This is Remus, and Sirius, and—there's James," she said, pointing over her shoulder, as James grinned and waved.

"All firs' years? Good, stick together, don' get buffeted by the crowd," Hagrid advised. "Firs' years! C'mon, follow me—any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years, follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, grabbing onto each other's hands for balance, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark either side of them that asking them to light their wands seemed like an appropriate order, but Hagrid just ambled on idly, letting them half-jog to keep up with his great steps, for every one of which Vesper had to take three very large strides. There was a great jostling and whispering, people pushing and clustering together in wariness of what stood either side of the path—Vesper thought it was probably trees—and at the head of the line, Sirius and Vesper, hand-in-hand, were followed by James and Remus, James grunting at someone who kept stepping on the backs of his feet and the hem of Remus's robes.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid promised, calling over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

Vesper gasped, feeling her insides expand as if filled with some gloriously warm, sunny gas. The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great lake, the deep purple water reflecting the star-studded sky and rippling gently in a gentle breeze and cresting slightly at the sides of a fleet of little boats. Beyond, a great, illuminated castle stood perched atop a high mountain, windows sparkling in the starry sky, turrets and towers glowing, forestry creeping towards a great sweeping lawn, mountains untold hovering in inky shadow behind. The waning moon glowed vibrantly beyond the castle, a beautiful and spectral sight. Sirius's hand twitched slightly, curled around Vesper's for balance as they had walked the path, and Vesper glanced at him, smiling. His eyes were fixed on the castle, however, and there was something so…_adoring_. He gazed upon Hogwarts as if he was gazing upon the face of the most cherished and adored of lovers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to the fleet of little boats lapping the water's edge. Sirius grinned, acting very gentlemanly as he handed Vesper into the boat.

"Ladies at the front; you can be our figurehead," he grinned, and Vesper laughed and plonked down indelicately at the front of the little boat, though she turned to gaze at the castle over her shoulder; James had clambered into the boat after getting his feet thoroughly soaked misjudging the distance from shore to boat, and Remus climbed in carefully after him, shooting Vesper a small smile that did nothing to lessen the excitement glittering in his eyes.

"Everyone in?" Hagrid shouted, who had a boat to himself nearest theirs. "Right then—_FORWARD_!" Vesper jumped, and as she did so the little fleet of boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake. Vesper laughed as she tumbled onto Sirius's and James's feet.

"Very graceful," James remarked, smirking, and Vesper laughed as she clambered back into her seat at the front of the boat.

"Oi! Don't rock the boat!" Sirius squawked indignantly, gurgling into a laugh as Vesper rocked bodily in her seat, sending the sides of their little boat lapping at the surface of the lake, taking in some water, Sirius coming dangerously close to falling in. Vesper had to admit he had a good sense of balance.

"Scared you'll fall in, chicken?" she grinned mischievously, rocking the boat again, one hand curled on either side.

"I'm not a chicken!" Sirius exclaimed indignantly, and Vesper laughed as he took his turn to rock the boat; more water sloshed into the bottom, and James and Remus laughed as Sirius overbalanced, almost toppling into the midnight water before James caught hold of his robes.

"Oi!" Hagrid called. "Enough o' that, Vesper. I see yer sister Edessa was right abou' you!"

"Depends what she said!" Vesper called back, laughing merrily.

"Said yeh were ten pounds o' gunpowder in a five pound bushel!" Hagrid said, his voice thinly veiling amusement with disapproval. "Heads down!" They all ducked their heads, and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy—James gave an "_Oof_!" and spluttered, spitting leaves out of his face, knocked back out of his seat into Remus's knees, and Sirius barked a laugh—which hid a wide opening in the cliff-face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a little dock, where they clambered out on to rocks and pebbles.

"Everyone check their boats, make sure yeh've no' left anythin'," Hagrid called, and Remus did a quick sweep of their boat, handing James his glasses with an amused roll of his eyes. James patted his face, frowning bemusedly, and Sirius snorted as James jumped, grabbing the spectacles and ramming them over his eyes. They followed Hagrid's lamp again, clambering up a passageway in the rock, coming out at last on to smooth, damp grass in the shadow of the castle. Up a flight of broad stone steps, they crowded around the huge, oak front door. Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

Vesper shot a glance at Sirius, and James, and Remus, and they all gave her the same kind of excited, half-exhilarated, half-anticipating grin she wore, and immediately the front door swung open. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood, gazing sternly out at all of them. Vesper quirked an eyebrow; this must be Professor McGonagall. Edessa had told her all about Gryffindor's Head of House, and the stern professor of Transfiguration.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said.

"Thank you, Hagrid; I will take them from here." She pulled the door wide, and the Entrance Hall was revealed, illuminated by golden torches and featuring a magnificent marble staircase, and a very worn flagstone floor trampled by the feet of a thousand years' worth of students. They passed a doorway to the right, through which the drone of hundreds of voices was muffled, but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. Crowding in, Vesper frowned and pushed against the people cramming far nearer to her than was necessary.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall said. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony, held at the beginning of every new school year, and while you are here, your House will be something like your family. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory and spend free-time in your House common-room.

"The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history—" Here, Sirius snorted softly, looking a little churlish, but Professor McGonagall ignored him "—and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House cup, a great honour; I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Professor McGonagall's eyes lingered for a moment on Lily's friend's greasy hair, and a clumsy-looking boy whose cloak had managed to fasten over his left shoulder-blade, and a pink-cheeked girl whose plait was rapidly unravelling; there was a bit of ivy tangled in it. "I shall return when we are ready for you." she turned on her heel and left the chamber. A little way off, Vesper heard Lily anxiously ask, "How exactly do they sort us into houses again, Sev?"

Vesper smoothed the front of her robes; Remus adjusted his tie, as if not quite used to the feeling of wearing one; James tried to flatten his hair; Sirius yawned, smoothed a hand through his handsome dark locks, and eyed the rest of the first years, just as Vesper was doing.

"Merlin, I'm hungry," Sirius moaned.

"We had sweets not half an hour ago!" Remus laughed softly.

"Yeah, but they were sweets!" James said, frowning as he struggled with his own hair, trying to press it down flat. "Dad says he _always_ looked forward to the feasts. How do I look?"

"Gorgeous," Sirius smirked in amusement as James smoothed the front of his robes, his flattened hair slowly but surely spiking waywardly again.

"Yeah, I like the way your face comes out of your robes like this," Vesper teased, rumpling James's hair vigorously so he yelled "_Oi_!" and swatted her hand away, dodging out of her reach.

"Form a line!" a crisp voice said, and there was much shoving and pushing and hiding behind others, and Sirius backed into her playfully, laughing softly under his breath as she needled him in the sides, making him giggle and squirm. James tried to tug at her hair ribbon, and Remus laughed softly behind him; beyond Remus, the rest of the first years were gazing at them with something close to awe at their daring, and with a quick sweep of her sharp eyes along the line, Professor McGonagall nodded and swept off; Sirius lurched after her, taken off-guard by her abrupt departure, and Vesper strode behind him. They crossed the Entrance Hall and entered the pair of double-doors into the Great Hall.

Vesper was used to splendiferous sights; her family adored travelling, had many fabulous homes scattered all over the ancient wizarding strongholds in Europe, and she had been to the gilded Atrium in the Ministry of Magic once; the Great Hall in Hogwarts was a famous place, and she had never seen something as strange and splendid. Lit by thousands upon thousands of candles hovering in midair without dripping melted wax on people, the rest of the students sat at four long, polished tables that looked as old as the foundations of stone on which the castle had been built. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets, and at the top of the hall was another long table, where other professors sat. Professor McGonagall led them up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, the teachers at their backs.

Vesper glanced to her right, where the teachers all sat wearing their best robes, watching the proceedings with genuine interest, probably trying to get a first glimpse of their new students to match the names to the faces tomorrow morning. In the very centre of the High Table, wearing magnificent robes of shimmering forget-me-not silver, making his clear eyes glow, and picking out the last threads of deep auburn in his beard, sat Uncle Al. Vesper grinned, catching his attention, and waved. His eyes twinkled, half-moon spectacles flashing, as he smiled back, winking, his fingertips pressed together like a steeple over his stomach and the tufts of his red-speckled beard.

Hundreds of faces flickered shadowy gold in the light of the candles, glittering from reflected gold and glass, and dotted here and there amongst the sea of black robes were pearly silver ghosts. Glancing up, Vesper grinned, poking Sirius gently in the back and raising her eyes pointedly when he glanced over his shoulder at her; she saw his face break into a wolfish grin, eyes twinkling in the reflected light of the thousands of candles, and the stars that glittered, unhindered, through the ceiling—or apparent lack thereof.

"…_it__'__s __bewitched_," a voice whispered, and there was a breathless gasp of wonder. Vesper's attention was distracted from the twinkling darkest-purple, star-studded ceiling by movement; Professor McGonagall had silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years, and on top of this she laid a pointed wizard's hat, patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Vesper's eyebrows rose; this was the _Sorting __Hat_! She wasn't the only one staring at the hat; everyone in the Hall seemed to have turned their attention from the petrified-looking first-years to the Hat. For a few seconds, there was total silence; then the Hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide, like a mouth—and the Hat began to _sing_;

"_Oh, __you __may __not __think __I__'__m __pretty, __but __don__'__t __judge __by __what __you __see, __I__'__ll __eat __myself __if __you __can __find __a __smarter __hat __than __me._

_You can keep your bowlers black, your top hats sleek and tall, for I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, and I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can't see, so try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart, their daring, nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart;_

_You __might __belong __in __Hufflepuff, __where __they __are __just __and __loyal, __those __patient __Hufflepuffs __are __true __and __unafraid __of __toil;_

_or __yet __in __wise __Ravenclaw, __if __you__'__ve __a__ready __mind, __where __those __of __wit __and __learning __will __always __find __their __kind;_

_or __perhaps __in __Slytherin __you__'__ll __make __your __real __friends__—"_

Here, Vesper was certain she'd heard Sirius scoff

"—_those __cunning __folk __use __any __means __to __achieve __their __ends._

_So __put __me __on! __Don__'__t __be __afraid! __And __don__'__t __get __in __a __flap!_

_You__'__re __in __safe __hands__(though __I __have __none)_

_for __I__'__m __a __Thinking __Cap!_"

The entire Hall broke into applause as the Hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again. Sirius glanced over his shoulder, catching first Vesper's eye, then James's behind her, and let out a pent-up breath, raising his eyebrows expressively. Professor McGonagall stepped forward, unfurling a very long scroll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the Hat and sit on the stool to be Sorted," she said clearly. "Applebee, Freya." A timid-looking girl with a strawberry-blonde plait going down her back approached the stool on shaking legs; Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on her head, and after a moment, it announced, "HUFFLEPUFF!" Her shoulders sagged with relief, she scuttled to join the table that had applauded the loudest.

"Applebee, Matilda." A second girl with a long, strawberry-blonde plait staggered forward; within a moment, she had joined the table above which fluttered silk banners of bronze and sapphire—Ravenclaw. Vesper saw her gaze longingly at the Hufflepuff table, where her sister sat, but her attention was drawn to the Slytherin table erupting in cheers as Maximilian Avery joined their fold.

"Black, Sirius," Professor McGonagall said clearly, and, shooting a haughty smirk toward the Slytherin table, Sirius strolled forward, hands in his pockets, and sat grinning lazily, one leg outstretched, eyeing the stern professor coquettishly as she lowered the hat toward his head; barely touching his hair, it cried, "GRYFFINDOR!" and as she laughed delightedly that he had got his wish of breaking from family tradition, Vesper distinctly heard several gasps from the Slytherin table before the Gryffindor table, resplendent with banners of gold and scarlet, roared its approval upon receiving its first new member. After Alexa Brown and Tess Cavanaugh had both been Sorted into Ravenclaw, and Slytherin gained two new students, Sandra Burke and Wolfgang Caste, quivering with adrenaline and anticipation, on the balls of her feet, Vesper bounded forward, grinning from ear to ear as Professor McGonagall began, "Cœur—I haven't finished reading your name yet!"

Vesper grinned, shrugging her shoulders and raising her palms up innocently, and plonked herself down on the stool as the Hall erupted with chuckles, and glanced up, grinning, at Professor McGonagall, who stood frowning at her, the Hat poised in midair.

"Are you ready for this?" Vesper asked, raising her eyebrows. "You've been given a reprieve for years because my sisters have no sense of curiosity, but the moment this Hat comes off, it's Bulldog, Bulldog, rah-rah-rah!" she exclaimed. Rolling her eyes with an exasperation she probably doubted she would have had to face with a line of terrified-looking first-years, Professor McGonagall brought the Hat closer. Vesper barely felt it tickle the very finest flyaway hairs before it screamed, "GRYFFINDOR!"

"_I __told __you!_" Vesper crowed giddily at Uncle Albus, beaming, as she thrust the Hat back at Professor McGonagall and raced down to the Gryffindor table, amid raucous applause and more than a little laughter. Edessa caught her eye, her wide, proud grin glittering in the candlelight as she applauded. _She __was __in __Gryffindor_! Of course, she knew she would be, but making it official caused such a delicious rush of adrenaline that her entire body was jazzed with it, and she threw herself onto the bench beside Sirius Black, who grinned, applauding as loudly as any of the older students, slinging an arm around her shoulders to squeeze them, grinning handsomely.

"Glad you're a blood-traitor too?" Vesper exclaimed, and Sirius grinned, nodding vigorously, his eyes twinkling. Hush fell as Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, and she Sorted Maharet Crouch, Lionel Crowe and Caspar Depardieu into, respectively, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin, before the name "Evans, Lily" peaked Vesper's curiosity and she glanced up at the little rickety stool. The red-haired, upset Lily from the train—the one who had stalked off with her Slytherin-hopeful friend—tumbled forward on trembling legs and sank upon the stool. Barely a second after the Hat touched her dark red hair, it cried "_Gryffindor_!"

Lily took off the Hat, handed it to Professor McGonagall, and hurried towards the Gryffindor table; Vesper cheered alongside Sirius, and she saw Lily glance back at the line of first years, to her greasy-haired friend, who looked pale and forlorn in the candlelight. Vesper grinned and waved as Lily approached, and she smiled shyly as she climbed onto the bench beside her. They watched the rest of the Sorting; after hard-faced Aster Flint was Sorted into Slytherin house, May Gilbert, Christian Hapsburg, Joshua Hyde and Donna Jane were all Sorted into Hufflepuff, and the name "Lupin, Remus" rang from the top of the Hall.

White-faced, Remus stumbled forward, his cheeks warming, and he perched, straight-backed, on the stool, his cheeks hollowing as his eyes widened, gazing over the Hall; Professor McGonagall placed the Hat on his head, and it took less than the average amount of time for the Hat to make up its mind. Sirius stamped his feet and Vesper pounded on the table energetically as Remus fled toward them, his face glowing with delight now, instead of apprehension.

"You were right!" he half-whispered across the table to Vesper. "It _does_ make a difference what you choose!" Vesper grinned, and a few moments later, Remus had a bench-mate in Mary Macdonald, a girl with a short brunette bob and pretty, very dark eyes. They got all the way through the Ms, the sole N, O and the first of three Ps before another Gryffindor joined the ranks, though Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw numbers swelled; Peter Pettigrew was small and round, mousy and clumsy-looking, his face shining with sweat as he sank, trembling, onto the stool, and the Hat took perhaps the longest time of all to Sort any student so far. In the end, it decided upon Gryffindor, and the table had barely hushed their applause for Peter before James was dashing down from the stool, the Hat having barely touched his untidy hair before bellowing out his new allegiance.

Slytherin gained a sour-looking boy named Rosier and Lily's greasy-haired friend from the train, a boy with the unfortunate moniker Severus Snape. Gryffindor gained two more students; Isabella Teller, and, after two boys were admitted to Ravenclaw, and a boy and girl to Hufflepuff, the very last first-year, Juniper Zimmerman, joined the Gryffindor table, looking relieved not to be standing alone by the teachers' table. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away. Vesper grinned around at her new schoolmates, her new _friends_ and dormitory-mates. Sirius was gazing at the golden plate before him as if sheer willpower would make food appear there, and James—who had squeezed in between Remus and Mary Macdonald when he had bounded down from the High Table—were talking quietly; Mary, Isabella and Juniper were all chatting, their faces shining with delight.

Uncle Albus got to his feet, and he was beaming at everyone, arms raised wide and open, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

"Welcome!" he said, and the Hall quieted, though with a jubilant silence now more than one of anticipation and fright; "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! I would like to say a few words… _Tuck __in_."

Sirius practically roared with delight as the House tables instantly groaned under the weight of feasts for hundreds. The dishes in front of her were now piled high with food; she had rarely seen so many things she liked to eat piled on one table: roast beef; roast chicken; the most perfect roast potatoes in the world; sausages; steak; Yorkshire puddings; baby Brussels sprouts; roasted pork with wonderful crackling and fresh, homemade apple sauce; cheesy broccoli; steaming tureens of fresh peas and carrots; potatoes Dauphinoise; chicken and ham pie; all kinds of roasted and grilled vegetables; sausage-rolls; macaroni and cheese; baked beans; cheesy grilled mushrooms; sweet, chilli-rubbed salmon; duck-breasts; slow-braised lamb; buttery runner-beans; mustard-chicken; greens; roasted tomatoes; creamed spinach; corn on the cob; fish-cakes; moules mariniere; crispy new-potatoes; butterbeans and bacon; mushroom sauce; chipolatas; and, due no doubt to Uncle Albus's quirky delight in Muggle sweets, little dishes of blackcurrant and liquorice boiled-sweets.

"I don't know what to have first!" James exclaimed, his hands clapped over his cheeks, eyes wide as he took in such a display of food, sweating jugs of pumpkin-juice, water and Butterbeer, and the little dishes of sweets.

"'V-n," Sirius exclaimed, his mouth full; he had heaped his plate already, and Vesper laughed as he chewed vigorously, making almost indecent noises as he swallowed, gasping for breath. "Have something of everything!" Vesper was already helping herself, taking a little of everything within reach, particularly the slow-braised lamb, the duck, the muscles, butterbeans, mushroom sauce, runner-beans, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and steak, Yorkshires, and mounds of Brussels sprouts and peas, cheesy broccoli and creamed spinach.

"You have an unhealthy amount of _green_ on your plate," James remarked disapprovingly, helping himself to steak, mushroom sauce, corn on the cob and chicken and ham pie.

"I _love_ vegetables!" Vesper exclaimed, as Remus picked out a particularly pink steak, eyes sparkling with delight as he added Yorkshires, those perfect roast-potatoes and cheesy mushrooms—which Vesper asked for, and he grinned as he offered her the platter; Sirius plucked a mushroom off the platter with his fork, grinning wolfishly.

"Would anybody like my crackling?" Lily asked shyly, glancing around. "My dad always has it at home."

"I'll have it!" Sirius spoke up quickly, grinning. "I _love_ crackling. Never get it at home; Regulus is always given the best bits." He took the proffered roast-pork crackling and grinned, setting it on the edge of his plate to eat last, the same thing Vesper's eldest sister Una did when she came for Sunday lunch.

"Where is home?" one of the girls asked. "I'm Juni, by the way." Vesper committed her name to memory, locking it away alongside Juni's appearance; dark-eyed, caramel-brunette, with a heart-shaped face and little nose.

"London," Sirius said gloomily. "Where's everyone else from?"

"Hampshire," Remus said shyly. "I live near Winchester."

"Oh, I've been there!" Lily said brightly. "Mum and Dad took us to visit the Cathedral. And Jane Austen's house in the countryside. And one of the last working silk-mills in the country."

"Where are you from?" James asked, nodding at Lily.

"Yorkshire," Lily said, a little stiffly, perhaps remembering the slight on her friend from the train earlier. "What about you?"

"Devon," James grinned proudly. "Right on the coast. I'm looking forward to the first snow here. We never get it down South, not unless you count the enchanted kind." Lily gave him a perplexed sort of frown. "Vesper, what about you?"

"Well, my sisters live all over," she sighed. "Some in London, one in Jerusalem and another in Mykonos, and we have a lot of family in France and Russia, and Daddy liked to take me, Balian and Diane with him when he travels to visit, but Uncle Septimus has an estate in Hampshire, and we've always lived with him." Vesper glanced at Remus, smiling warmly, that they had something in common. Vesper adored Hampshire; in her opinion it was some of the prettiest countryside there was, all the meadows, the streams, the sleepy willows and flower-carpeted hills and winding country walks, the woodlands that glowed orange, ochre and scarlet in autumn, carpeted with bluebells in spring; she loved the mellow weather, the rich, warm summer days, the cosy, snugly winter evenings tucked under hand-knitted blankets and furs before the fire, frost and snow touching the windowpanes.

Juni lived in the Hebrides, and found it annoying she had had to travel all the way down to London to catch the train up to the Scottish Highlands, but was gratified that she had met a few of her fellow first-years on the journey; Mary Macdonald was from a very poor part of Glasgow; and Isabella Teller was from Oxford. Mousy, shiny-faced Peter had lived in several places, the most recent being Leeds, and was happy to be spending the next seven years in one place.

When everyone had eaten their fill of savouries—which for James and Sirius, and even peaky-looking Remus, meant second- and third-helpings—the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean. Lily gasped softly.

"Mum would _love_ to know how to do _that_," she said. "She's always saying how long it takes to do the washing-up."

A collective gasp was issued, and then a groan, because a moment later the puddings had appeared. Bowls of ice-cream in every flavour imaginable; pies of every filling; chocolate cake; strawberry tart; _tarte __tatin_; little cupcakes topped with half-cherries and candied violets; custard tarts; scones; trifle; bread-and-butter pudding; steamed chocolate sponge; treacle tart; rice pudding; jam doughnuts; éclairs; Eton mess; cheesecake; lemon-meringue pie; custards and sauces of every flavour; Pavlova; colourful jellies; profiteroles drenched in melted chocolate sauce; sticky-toffee pudding; jam tarts; spotted dick; chocolate log; Victoria-sponge cake; cheesecake; dishes of fresh fruit and berries; baked apples; brandy-snaps.

With desserts, it seemed James knew what he liked; he had eyes for nothing but the treacle tart, while Sirius avoided the jelly moulds nearby, taking a thick wedge of chocolate-cake, followed by apple-pie drenched in ice-cream, cream _and_ custard, a handful of profiteroles and some chocolate-log, a brandy-snap and a bowl of strawberries. Vesper had a slice of tarte tatin, a baked-apple, some Pavlova, a cherry-topped cupcake and a big wedge of apple-and-blackberry pie swimming in custard. Remus helped himself to a _huge_ chunk of chocolate-cake doused in cream, an éclair and a few profiteroles, and a slice of chocolate-log.

They did nothing but eat until the last of the ice-creams melted into nothingness, and Vesper was beginning to feel very warm and sleepy, thinking longingly of bed, because Sirius didn't seem to mind her leaning against his shoulder, her eyelids drooping, the taste of custard and blackberries still sweet on her lips, the warmth of the candles and the now softer, more contented chatter so familiar from memories of family gatherings past, and Sirius lent his head on top of hers, his body relaxing until they were the only thing keeping each other upright.

Uncle Albus got to his feet, looking happily about the Hall, which fell silent. This, more than a firecracker going off or someone screaming, had Vesper craning her neck, peering about through tired, squinting eyes, trying to make out what was going on, for she had been wandering blissfully in that place between sleep and awake, where dreams were tangible and everything tangible became surreal and pleasant.

"I have a few more words not that we are fed and watered, our attention less likely to stray to our stomachs," Uncle Albus said, smiling warmly around the Hall. "I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. Firstly, first-years should note that the forest in the grounds is forbidden to all pupils." Vesper sat up a little straighter; beside her, so did Sirius, and James's eyebrows had risen curiously. Remus's hand was cradling his cheek, and his eyes were closed; Vesper wondered whether he had fallen asleep where he sat.

"Sounds cool," James said, and Vesper grinned.

"Tisiphone says there are werewolves and unicorns and Acromantula living in there," Vesper breathed, and James's eyes widened. Remus seemed to awaken abruptly, his eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

"Acromantula?" Lily whispered, glancing over her shoulder at Vesper, momentarily distracted from Uncle Albus's speech about not hexing the caretaker's cat by the strange word.

"Spiders the size of carthorses," Vesper breathed, and Lily couldn't suppress her shudder. "You probably won't ever see them, though; the centaurs will cut you off before you get too far into the forest. That's what Tisiphone says, anyway. Centaurs are very territorial—rightly so, considering the restrictions the Ministry's been trying to put on them recently—"

"—I have also been asked by Mr Filch to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term; anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Master Boreal. I would like to congratulate our new Head Boy and Girl, and all of our new prefects. Authority figures always attract trouble, as I am sure several of our younger students will feel entitled to make certain of." Uncle Albus's eyes lingered for a moment on Vesper, and she smirked, not bothering to smother a chuckle as Sirius and James grinned, and Remus's eyes glittered, no longer looking slightly awkward about the Acromantula rumoured to live in the Forbidden Forest. "And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school anthem!"

"Excellent! Dinner theatre!" James exclaimed, as Uncle Albus flicked his wand as if trying to rid it of a fly perched at the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, rising high above the tables, twisting snakelike into words.

"Everyone pick their favourite tune," Dumbledore said, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed;

"_Hogwarts, __Hogwarts, __Hoggy __Warty __Hogwarts,_

_Teach us something please,_

_Whether we be old and bald_

_Or young with scabby knees,_

_Our heads could do with filling_

_With some interesting stuff, _

_For now they're bare and full of air,_

_Dead flies and bits of fluff, _

_So teach us things worth knowing,_

_Bring back what we've forgot,_

_Just do your best, we'll do the rest,_

_And __learn __until __our __brains __all __rot_!"

Everybody finished the song at different times, and those who finished first laughed at those still singing, Uncle Albus conducting the last with his wand, and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

"Ah, music!" he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here. And now, bedtime! Off you trot!"

"First years!" Vesper grinned as she turned to Edessa, who was smoothing her robes, looking very happy and contented, as she and Fabian approached, prefect badges gleaming in the candlelight, their hands entwined. "Follow us; we'll show you up to Gryffindor Tower. Try not to get separated, alright."

"Unbelievable," Vesper murmured to Sirius, "I'm here five minutes, she's already bossing me about—nothing, Edie! Lead on!" Sirius chuckled, and they followed Edessa and Fabian through the chattering crowds—grabbing hold of each other's robes or ponytails so as not to get separated—out of the Great Hall and up the marble staircase. Skipping along delightedly, Vesper alternated her attention between the subjects of the portraits lining the walls—listening to Lily exclaim softly that they all _moved_—and watching Edessa and Fabian shrewdly; they looked far more interested in gazing into each others' eyes covetously than checking to make sure Peter Pettigrew hadn't been separated by a large group of burly sixth-year Ravenclaws, which he had. Remus had to jog to catch up with them, having noticed Peter's absence and gone back for him. Edessa and Fabian led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging draperies, and her mind was thrown back to what Uncle Septimus had told her last evening, and she didn't bother suppressing a grin. They climbed more and more staircases, yawning and chatting sleepily, overwhelmed with a warm drowsiness that drew them ever closer to their beds.

"Why does travelling always make you t-t-_tired_?" Vesper yawned, and Sirius caught it, shaking his head with a shrug. Vesper exclaimed as she bounced off something solid; Fabian had stopped abruptly, and she had walked into him. "_Oi_!"

"Sorry, Vesper," Fabian chuckled, reaching down to hoist her up by the neck of her robes.

"Why're we stopping?" James yawned.

"We're here," Edessa said, smiling warmly as she looked at James, whose eyes were half-lidded, Sirius, who was leaning against Vesper, Remus, whose forehead was resting on James's shoulder, yawning, and the girls, who were each in some level of pre-slumber.

"We are?" James perked up, and his high exclamation drew the attention of the others, who all grunted softly and blinked owlishly. They had reached the end of a carpet-lined corridor featuring shining suits of armour, marble busts and statues, and paintings of every size and subject, but they stood before a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she asked serenely.

"Discombobulate," Fabian said, and the portrait swung open, to general gasps of delight and astonishment. "Remember that, and make sure to check with prefects every few weeks; the password tends to change a lot."

"Oh _no_," said a quiet voice, but everyone else was already scrambling through a hole in the wall, into the Gryffindor common-room.

"It looks just like Ioveta's paintings of it," Vesper said approvingly, gazing around the large, cosy round room, which was full of squashy armchairs, polished round tables, little side-tables, bookcases, the floors covered in rugs, paintings and Gryffindor banners hanging on the walls, and an enormous fireplace crackling merrily. Evidence of thousands of years' worth of students remained in the initials scratched into the stonework surrounding the fireplace, and the trinkets and forgotten belongings lining the bookcase shelves; there was a large wireless, and a neat pile of records that had been left behind by former students, a large trunk filled with blankets for when it got colder, and a large notice-board already announcing the first meetings of clubs like Charms and Gobstones, and which Una said always featured a few offers for Chocolate Frog card trades.

"Alright, girls, you're with me—boys, follow Fabian," Edessa smiled. "Goodnight, boys."

"'Night," Sirius yawned, and James waved; Vesper's shoulders slumped as she glanced at the boys. Little Peter was following anxiously behind Sirius and James; Remus was still taking in the common-room with wide, delighted eyes. She glanced then at the girls; pretty-eyed Mary, Juni with her heart-shaped face, Isabella, and discontented Lily who'd wanted to be in Slytherin.

"Edessa, can't I—?" she began, gesturing at the boys' retreating backs as they followed Fabian up a spiral staircase. She had had such a lovely day, chatting and laughing with those boys. Lily had wanted to be in _Slytherin_; what kind of common-ground would she find _there_? She wanted to go with the boys and continue the fun she knew they'd be having by themselves, without her.

"Vesper," Edessa said, smiling understandingly. "Don't worry; they'll all be too tired and full to get into mischief. They'll be asleep before their heads hit their pillows. You won't miss anything." But she had already made friends with those boys. She _liked _them, as much even as she liked her sisters, who were her best friends.

"Vesper," a quiet voice said, and she glanced around, beaming; it was Remus, and he looked shy and nervous, glancing at the other girls, who were still gazing around the common-room. "D'you…do you think you might want to go down to breakfast together, tomorrow?"

"Yes!" Vesper grinned. "Don't be having any fun up there without me!"

"We won't," Remus said quietly, looking very pleased. "Goodnight."

"'Night!" Vesper beamed, and with a renewed spring in her step, Vesper dashed up the spiral staircase before Edessa. Each door they passed—some open, showing a rage of activity in poster-pinning, pillow-hurling, giggling, sharing out sweets and Butterbeer or Firewhiskey (which she glimpsed in the seventh-year dormitory, before the door was slammed in her face by a very giggly, round-faced girl) music blaring, trunks exploding in a shower of colourful robes, books, framed photographs and shoes, little pots and tubes of cosmetics, some doors closed—featured a little plaque with the year of the students living within, and at the very top of the staircase, she found a door marked '_First __Years_', and threw it open.

A circular room, it featured five four-poster beds each draped with heavy blood-red velvet curtains; beside each bed was a dainty little dressing-table with a mirror and a drawer; each featured a sinuously-carved chair upholstered, again, with red velvet, and on the other side of the beds was a narrow single-door wardrobe; there was a little grate from which wonderful warmth glowed dark amber, and each of their trunks had been brought up, placed at the foot of each bed.

"Goodnight, girls!" Edessa called, as they searched to find their own labelled trunks, and she reached down to smooth Vesper's hair and kiss the top of her head; Vesper gave her a brief hug, yawning, before Edessa left the dormitory, closing the door behind her. Much too tired to talk, they climbed into their nightdresses and pyjamas, and fell into bed, Vesper filled with the niggling suspicion that the boys_were_ having an exciting chat about their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons or continuing the discussion they'd been having about the Quidditch World Championship. Vesper had a galleon on Scotland for the final.

Vesper's last conscious thought was that these four-posters were _so_ soft compared to the folding camp-beds she and her brother and sisters slept on at home. Daddy didn't like them to grow up spoiled, so they only slept in beds like these when they were ill…and Vesper wasn't ill. She was at _Hogwarts_, in Gryffindor Tower.

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><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: I'm guilty of reusing the Sorting Hat's song from _Philosopher__'__s __Stone_, I know. Poems aren't my area of expertise! As to the end of the chapter, I think we've all been in a position where we've been having a really good time, but parents separated you, and you knew those left were continuing to have a really good time without you. So that's how Vesper felt.


	4. 04

**A.N.**: Again dedicated to _ElizabethAnneSoph_ who requested a little mischief. I am ecstatic over just printing out my twelve-page essay on sixteenth-century Anabaptism, and to celebrate I decided to give you all a present!

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_04_

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><p>Vesper woke very early the next morning. A full stomach and a very comfortable bed had given her a wonderful night's sleep, and by the freshly-minted gleam of the beam of sunlight pouring in through the diamond-paned windows, she guessed it was little later than dawn, which suited her fine. At home, she and the twins were usually up to jog about the lake before a cold bath and breakfast with Daddy and Uncle Septimus, before they had their morning lessons in the olive-green schoolroom with its corner stove, the great round inlaid table they sat at to work, the upright piano, the tempting billiards table, the walls lined with low bookcases piled with trinkets and art supplies, the walls decorated with their drawings, photographs, compositions and papers, the floors decorated with thick, handmade carpets and the skins of Uncle Septimus's dead pet leopards.<p>

It was strange not to get up to jog, something she quite enjoyed, as it depleted her jittery energy so she didn't fidget so much during her morning lessons. And it was queer not to hear Diane's gentle snores, or Balian's clockwork trains tooting in the next room; he always played with them first thing in the morning, before it was light enough to jump on his twin-sister's bed and wake her up. Vesper climbed out of bed, adjusting her sleeveless off-the-shoulder night-dress where it had twisted and fallen off one shoulder, the other strap choking her; and she pulled up one of her socks where it had fallen round her ankle, and quickly and neatly made her bed before going to her trunk, kneeling before it, and quietly opened it.

Her trunk had belonged to Tisiphone, her second-eldest sister and the one Vesper idolised more than even Una; Tisiphone was an Auror, and, like her much older superior in the Auror Office, Alastor Moody, she kept her things in a magical trunk with multiple compartments. She had given Vesper her old trunk, one which had two compartments, and Vesper, tongue between her lips thoughtfully, tapped the right-hand lock, thinking _Alohamora_; the lock clicked, and she grunted as she shifted the lid open. Her robes, clothing and school things were all neatly folded within, along with piles of hand-knitted socks, dainty cotton under-dresses, tights with embroidered monograms on the back of the waistband; hand-knitted fair-isle cardigans in beautiful sage-green and rose hues; tam o'shanter hats; handmade gloves and mittens; scarves and a pair of ear-muffs. She picked out her school uniform, laying it out on her bed, and retrieved her floral shower-cap, taking one of the fluffy towels draped to warm by the fire, and scuttled into the little bathroom just off the dormitory.

Perhaps the sound of running water had woken her, or like Vesper she was a morning-bird, but when Vesper exited the little bathroom in a cloud of steam—taking advantage of being able to have a warm shower so early in the morning, instead of at night before bedtime—Lily was sitting up in her bed, the curtains drawn back.

"Morning!" Vesper said brightly, towelling herself dry and reaching for her undergarments, not shy about dropping her towel to hop into her knickers and dainty vest; sharing a bedroom all her life with one, two or, at one point, three sisters had done away with physical shyness before she had even grown out of the childhood stage of dashing everywhere in the nude.

"Morning," Lily said, her eyes on her hands clasped in her lap. Vesper tugged her freshly-pressed blouse on, pausing as she did up the first button.

"Why do you sound so miserable?" she asked, stalking around her bed, bare-legged but wearing one sock—the other clutched in her hand, distracted from pulling it on by the softest cotton blouse on the bed—and slumped onto Lily's bed. The other girl looked like she was doing her best not to start crying; her eyes were glassy, and her nostrils were quivering slightly. "Come on, what's wrong?"

"I…I thought I'd be with Severus," Lily whispered hoarsely, sniffing shakily. She shifted awkwardly where she sat. "I…I don't know anybody else."

"None of us do," Vesper said, shrugging.

"You've got your sister. I met her on the train, she seemed very nice," Lily said, a little hollowly. Her incredibly green eyes twinkled subtly. "Even if she _is_ a prefect." Vesper grinned. "Are you very close with your sister?"

"With all of them," Vesper nodded, and Lily's shoulders seemed to slump. "But that's only because there are so many of us, our parents thought we'd suit each other for playmates, you know. My father was raised that way with _his_ siblings, as best-friends. Unless it's Christmastime or Midsummer, or something very big like a wedding or Christening happens and all the cousins come in from the Continent, we only have each other for company, and we were all tutored at home, so we don't see many other Wizarding children. Do you and your friend live near each other?"

"Severus lives in another neighbourhood," Lily sniffed. "We met at the park. He says I have lots of power… I never knew what I was doing was _magic_. I bet…" Lily's expression turned anxious, and her lower lip trembled ominously the way Diane's did whenever Balian got in a huff with her and said something nasty or ignored her for three days on end. Her voice thickened with emotion when she spoke next, her eyes on her twisting hands, "I bet I'm the worst in the class."

"You won't be," Vesper said. "Unless their parents are like mine, and they've had too many children to bother trying to stop them from stealing wands and looking through their elder siblings' textbooks, most first years won't have cracked a book open before this summer, and Wizarding parents know it's up to them to keep a check on what their children are doing when they've been given a wand, in case they cause hassle with the Improper Use of Magic Office. We all start on the same page here, though." Lily nodded subtly, a little more colour coming into her cheeks. Something else seemed to bother her, though, because a frown-line appeared between her brows.

"Why don't people like Slytherin?" she asked, glancing up at Vesper.

"It doesn't have a very nice reputation," Vesper said. "Salazar Slytherin's apparently the one who started all this pathetic discrimination against wizards who aren't purebloods. And there's barely a Dark Wizard in British history who didn't come from Slytherin. But I'm sure," Vesper added, catching the look on Lily's face, and remembering what Sirius had said about his Slytherin cousin reading a Jane Austen novel and listening to _Fleetwood __Mac_, "that Slytherins aren't _all_ bad. There are some good qualities to them, like their loyalty."

"What's a pureblood?" Lily asked.

"Oh," Vesper blushed subtly. "Er—well, it's the term some people give to families who've had magic in their lineage for generations. Some pureblood families go back to the very first evidence of magic in Britain. And there are some pureblood families who think they're better than everybody else because they have that history to lord over everyone else."

"Does having a long history of magic in the family make a difference to how good a witch or wizard you are?" Lily asked.

"Nah," Vesper sniffed. "My family has loads of friends who are from Muggle families, or have one magical parent and one Muggle parent—and some of them are far more magically talented than any pureblood, and far nicer, too. And that's why Slytherins have such a foul reputation—because most families Sorted into Slytherin come from those pureblood families that believe to have their blood makes them something short of royalty, and that everybody else is scum. Anyway, my Uncle Septimus says if wizards don't start marrying Muggles or half-bloods, we'll die out."

"Are you a pureblood?" Lily asked curiously.

"Well, there's pureblood, and then there's blood-traitor," Vesper said. She didn't like explaining all this to Lily, felt by Lily's expressions that she had heard similar things—probably from her friend Snape—but that what Vesper was saying contradicted what he had. "'Pureblood' usually refers to…I don't know—to the Malfoy family, or the Black family. _Very_ old families who have, er, interest in the Dark Arts and lean heavily on wizard supremacy, and have a lot of discrimination against anyone whose blood isn't as '_pure_' as theirs. And then there's…well, then there are families like mine." Lily frowned bemusedly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" Vesper frowned, scrunching her lips thoughtfully. "The way my family views things is very different to most pureblood families' opinions. We don't care about our children marrying Muggle-borns, and my Uncle Septimus is campaigning for equality with centaurs and werewolves, and our house-elves are free, not slaves bound to our family line… I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this, am I?" she added, because Lily was staring at her bemusedly again. Lily blushed, but she was smiling a little.

"Not really."

"Okay… You know…how in your Muggle government, you have the Whigs and the Tories?" Vesper said, trying to draw on everything Uncle Septimus had taught her about British Muggle politics. Lily nodded uncertainly. "My family is like the Whig party; we're very liberal. Most pureblood families are like Tories; very conservative, self-interested, and quite intolerant of anybody who doesn't hold their views, or challenges the way things are."

"Does it matter, being a Muggle-born, or a pureblood?" Lily asked. Vesper sighed. She knew discrimination against Muggle-borns and half-bloods was pervasive, and Uncle Septimus said the only way to stop it was to stop Sorting children into rigid schools of thought before they'd had the chance to start forming their own ideas about the way things worked.

"Well…put it this way," Vesper sighed again. "It only matters to the people who _don__'__t_ matter." Lily nodded slowly.

"Severus said it didn't matter," she said, sighing. "But it mattered to those boys in the carriage."

"No, what mattered to them was that your friend wanted to be in Slytherin," Vesper corrected. "As I said, it's got a nasty reputation. Didn't you see those girls who were Sorted there? They all looked like very nasty, spoiled pieces of work. And you're in Gryffindor, which means you get _me_!" She splayed her arms energetically, and Lily smiled for a moment, before her face fell again.

"I _wish_ we hadn't been separated from Severus, though," she said quietly, biting her lip.

"Well, you know, Edessa says some Houses are put together for specific lessons," Vesper said. "Maybe you'll be in the same class as him for something."

"That would be nice," Lily smiled sadly. "I was worried… Well, I didn't want to be separated from him, because he's the only wizard I know."

"Well, that's why you've come to _school_," Vesper rolled her eyes, smiling, "to meet _other_ witches and wizards and learn magic from them, and make friends! Here, by the way—" Vesper dashed to her trunk, unlocking the first compartment, and unveiled the neatly-folded stack of robes she had worn yesterday, the diaphanous, beadwork-embroidered white dress, her stockings, and her hooded muscovite-sleeved silk robes, the pockets still stuffed, on top of a pile of things she couldn't have left behind at home: records; novels; trinkets; paint-sets; her knitting; her beautiful writing-box; her Muggle board-games and diary and jewellery-box; and also her schoolbooks; a stack of very colourful exercise-books for her notes; ink-pots; brand-new quills and a creamy-beige recycled-parchment homework diary Tisiphone had made herself as a going-to-Hogwarts gift, hand-decorated on the cover, and inside featuring beautifully coloured, moving illustrations of a new charm to master every week.

Vesper picked up her robes and quickly emptied the pockets of everything she had stored in them yesterday: the Muggle sweets; her charmed Muggle transistor radio; her camera; Gobstones; magazines; the letters from her sisters; white-polka-dot fuchsia circular knitting-needles; her pocket 'Scrabble' board-game; her chess-pieces; and, finally, the Chocolate Frog cards she had gained and swapped with the boys yesterday. She picked out Dumbledore and Circe and handed them to Lily.

"You left these in the compartment yesterday," she said, and Lily blushed slightly as she took the cards.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to be rude when I left with Sev, it was just that those boys…"

"Behaved like boys," Vesper said, nodding knowingly.

"And now we're in the same class," Lily said, fiddling with Circe's card.

"They're brilliant," Vesper said emphatically. "Remus is a little quiet, but I think he's just shy, and he's very nice."

"What about the other two?"

"They've got energy," Vesper grinned. "Sirius is the first in his family to be Sorted into Gryffindor, which is very cool. And James wants to play Quidditch for Gryffindor, like his dad. I love Quidditch. Have you ever heard of it?"

"Severus doesn't follow it," Lily said, shaking her head. "Is it some sort of game?"

"It's the best game in the world," Vesper smiled. "You wait and see, the House Tournament is going to be amazing. I hope Edessa's boyfriend really _is_ as good a Chaser as she says."

"I suppose I had better get ready," Lily said, eyeing Vesper's sock as she tugged it on, and glancing around at the other three beds, the velvet curtains of which were still drawn.

"Best do, before they wake up and hog the bathroom," Vesper advised, hopping over to her own bed. "I'm going to meet the boys downstairs for breakfast. I'll see you in the Great Hall." Lily smiled and nodded, climbing out of bed, as Vesper tugged on her skirt, wrinkling her nose at the plain grey; she tied her hair with a ribbon, put on her jewellery, tied her shoelaces and rubbed cream on her face, adding a tiny dot of perfume to her wrists—the very same kind her mother had worn, a beautiful, somewhat exotic bouquet of roses in a foreign spice market. She put several of the colourful exercise books into her brand-new leather satchel, her monogram embossed into the leather on the bottom-centre of the front flap; she had already filled a quilted pencil-case roll with her best quills, dip-pen, pencils, colouring-pencils, a rubber, folding ruler and a little ink-pot; Septimus had taught her a charm to refill things, so she didn't have to lug a great load of lumpy, fragile ink-pots in her bag, and she tucked the pencil-case into her satchel with her exercise-notebooks and her textbooks.

Having as much money as her family did made no difference to Vesper, or her father, or Uncle Septimus. Since she was a little girl, Vesper had worn her elder sister's hand-me-down robes, all adjusted to fit her, and they had all been dressed alike; their mother used to dress the girls in pairs, or as a unified whole, Una and Tisiphone in one colour, Ambrosia and Melisende in another, Ioveta and Bethany in a third colour, sometimes all the same; their clothes were laid out by the house-elves, and the youngest sisters wore the clothes that had been handed down by the older girls. Vesper always wore the same outfit as Edessa when she was at home, and would, until Edessa's seventeenth birthday, when she was free to create her own wardrobe.

The same principal was upheld with schoolbooks, and trinkets no longer desired, old broomsticks; the same schoolbooks had been passed from sister to sister when appropriate, and it was lucky perhaps that Cœurvaill girls were brought up to be mindful of their possessions. She had Tisiphone's old books, Edessa using Una's old ones, and Diane would probably be given those, or Ambrosia's. At home, Vesper flew on Una's old broom, owned Ioveta's old record-player, would use Edessa's owl (which had belonged to Ioveta, before she moved to Jerusalem, where the climate didn't suit the owl), used her mother's old miniature chess-set, used the same rosewater facial-toner simply because _Ioveta_ used it on her face every morning, wore the same perfume her mother had because the scent brought back her mother's face in her memory, had been given Una's old Muggle camera, and every single tiny gold charm on her bracelet had been given as a gift by a sister, uncle, her father, the twins or one of the cousins or Grandmother Aspasia or Grandfather Primus, and only at Christmas, alternating whose turn it was to give the gift, because each of the sisters had a bracelet, and each of them had a pearl necklace, one more pearl added to the chain with every birthday that passed. Vesper had no pierced ears, wore no watch, but she had the gold charm bracelet, and her pearl necklace, and the very dainty, tiny round gold locket necklace she wore with it; each of her sisters had one; on one side was a tiny portrait of their father, and on the other side, their mother. It was the only jewellery she owned, and Vesper, more so than probably any other pureblood girl of her wealth, understood the value of money; all her sisters did.

Yesterday, when she had bought those four Butterbeers, she knew the eight sickles would come out of her pocket and she would have to resist buying something from the tuck-shop for a few weeks; she knew that robes were expensive, and appreciated her very well-loved hand-me-downs, mostly because they had belonged to Una, and Tisiphone. She loved Ioveta for giving Vesper her old record-player, and took far more delight in helping choose charms for her sisters' bracelets than anticipating the receipt of a charm for her own. She knew at seventeen, she would be given a wristwatch, and her ears would be pierced with tiny diamonds, and she would be allowed to put her hair up and lower her sisters' old robes with long hemlines.

In short, Vesper and her sisters were not indulged like dainty little princesses; they were given cold baths in the mornings after a healthy jog, ate breakfast with their family, had lessons until the afternoon, when Uncle Septimus would give them a flying lesson and a practical lesson in Herbology in the greenhouse, would ask them to de-gnome the kitchen-gardens, and they lived for the days when sisters would pass on old belongings.

Tisiphone's books all featured her neat, delicate handwriting, filling in the margins and underlining specific passages, tiny notes made of alternate steps (in the potions book) and annotating specific words, references noted to other book titles. Perhaps thinking ahead to when her sisters would use her books, she had made every effort to help them with their future homework assignments, and notes on particular pages in _The __Standard __Book __of __Spells, __Grade __1_ referencing other spells to look up if they liked that particular one. In the front page of _Fantastic __Beasts __and __Where __to __Find __Them_, Tisiphone had written '*_ask __Hagrid __if __you__'__re __stuck_' and in _Magical __Drafts __and __Potions_ by Arsenius Jigger, she had written '_Give __Sluggy __box __of __crystallised __pineapple __before __test __next __week!_'

Vesper was downstairs in the common-room, waiting for the boys, reading through Tisiphone's comments in _A __Beginners__' __Guide __to __Transfiguration_ by Emeric Switch, reading the names of books which Tisiphone had noted would earn extra points for referencing in essays, when loud laughter echoed down the boys' staircase, and two damp-haired and rather rumpled boys jumped down the last few steps, a slightly less-unkempt boy following, also carrying a book; _The __Dark __Forces: __A __Guide __to __Self-Protection_. Vesper had looked through her own copy and found it extremely interesting, though she did not particularly share the author's views on 'part-humans'.

Remus caught sight of her over James' and Sirius's heads and beamed, tucking his book under his arm as he hitched his satchel higher up his shoulder, and tapped Sirius's shoulder; he glanced over to where Vesper was sitting, in the comfiest armchair she had found by the fire, and Vesper smiled, tucking her book into her bag.

"Morning!" James grinned. "Did you sleep well? I barely got into my pyjamas before I fell asleep."

"Me too," Vesper grinned.

"Ugh, you're reading your textbooks already," Sirius said, noting Vesper tucking her book in her bag, and glancing at Remus. "Remus was, too."

"Actually, I was reading the notes my sister had written in the margins," Vesper said, and Sirius's eyebrows rose.

"Are they any good?"

"Ought to be; she got twelve O.W.L.s using these books," Vesper shrugged, and James's eyebrows rose this time. "I'm starving. Shall we go down?"

"_How__many_—" James panted, several minutes later, when they had taken yet another wrong turn, got held up by a door that really _wasn__'__t_ a door but a stretch of wall that simply _looked_ like a door, "_blinking_—staircases—are there!"

"A hundred and forty-two," Remus said quietly, and they turned to stare at him, blinking. He blushed. "I read it in _Hogwarts:__A__History_; my mother gave me her old copy."

"Well, that's way too many; I think I'm coming down with asthma," James said, clutching his chest.

"You can't come down with asthma. You're born with it," Sirius laughed, hauling James off the stairs by the back of his robes, where he'd sunk to catch his breath. "If you keep stopping every five minutes, we're going to have no breakfast, and we won't be able to get our schedules."

"Alright, fine!" James grumbled.

"They really should give new students maps," Vesper said thoughtfully, peering behind a tapestry she was sure they had ducked behind last night on the way up to Gryffindor Tower.

"From what I read in Mum's book," Remus said, "there are all these secret passageways within the school, shortcuts and the like."

"We should find some," James wheezed, as they stalked down another carpet-lined, portrait-hung corridor the width of a small cathedral, with a few stained-glass windows and statues on plinths to match.

"Yeah, and write our own map," Vesper said, frowning when they came to a corridor at the end of their own, which somehow managed to branch into three other passages. "This is much more difficult to navigate even than Grandmother Aspasia's palace in Russia. At least the portraits were helpful for tips there."

"Let's ask a portrait," Sirius said, stalking to a nearby painting of several ladies in wide skirts and trailing, fringed shawls. "Excuse me," he said politely, "can you point us in the direction of the Great Hall."

"Take the first left at the end of the corridor, dear, and mind the vanishing-step halfway down the stairs," one of the ladies said, fluttering a fan delicately, teasing her glossy ringlets. She gave them directions down to the Great Hall, via a hidden passage on the third-floor behind a door they had to ask particularly politely to open, and with a few coquettish waves from the other ladies in the painting, Sirius was sent on his way, the others following hurriedly, longing for breakfast.

"I hope we'll get our first flying lesson soon," James was saying excitably, and Remus added, "And Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Remus's wish came true: they sat down, finally, at the Gryffindor table, which was groaning with tureens of porridge, great bowls of cereal, racks of toast, pots of jam, marmalade, many teapots, coffee-pots and jugs of milk, pumpkin juice and water, platters of crumpets and bacon, fried eggs, dishes of scrambled eggs and sausages; baked beans, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, and piles of schedules had been left scattered down the centre of the table amid the food.

"Here we are; first-year schedules," Sirius said, reaching past an older, blonde girl, and picking up a handful of pieces of parchment, and handing them out to James, Remus and Vesper. She put hers down on the table beside her plate, where she was spreading raspberry jam on several slices of toast beside a pile of scrambled eggs, a sausage, some fried mushrooms and an English muffin, while Remus poured tea for them all.

"Oh, look! Today looks wonderful—but no Transfiguration," Vesper said. In the 'Monday' column was a ninety-minute Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, a ninety-minute Potions laboratory session, an hour-long Charms theory lesson, and double Herbology, with a break in the morning and a little while for lunch in between.

"Cool! First flying lesson's on Wednesday afternoon!" James grinned. "Excellent!—oh, damn! They don't start until next _week_."

"We get Friday afternoons off! And Wednesday mornings—well, 'til ten," Sirius added excitedly.

"I suppose they allow us a lie-in after our Astronomy lesson," Remus said, looking over his own schedule. "Astronomy's at midnight on Tuesday." Vesper ate her breakfast quite quickly, enjoying it nevertheless; the boys took second-helpings while she pulled out her wand, and her exercise-notebooks, and coordinating the colour of each little square on her schedule to the colour of the notebook she had labelled with each subject: Defence Against the Dark Arts glowed lilac; Potions, sage-green; Charms shimmered soft rose-pink; Herbology turned sunshine-yellow gold; Transfiguration to ruby-red; History of Magic to forget-me-not; General Studies to silver; and Astronomy to gold.

"Hey, that's cool!" James grinned. "Do mine!"

"No! Do it yourself—look, I'll show you," Vesper said, tugging James's timetable toward her, and she tapped one square, focusing on a colour, and said the charm clearly; the little Defence Against the Dark Arts square turned Gryffindor-gold. While she lathered blackcurrant jam on another slice of toast, Remus refilling the teacups, James and Sirius were busy prodding their timetables, until they shone in varying shades of gold and scarlet. Vesper smiled, watching Sirius; he seemed extremely proud of being the only member in his family to be Sorted into Gryffindor.

"Morning, Vesper," Edessa's voice said, and Vesper jumped as someone pressed their hands to her hair and kissed the top of her head; Edessa playfully flicked her hair-ribbon and smiled at James and Sirius, their heads bent together over their schedules.

"Hi."

"You've got your schedules already?" Edessa said, picking up Vesper's. "Oh, you've got Defence first thing, you lucky sods!"

"Edessa!" Vesper gasped softly. "I had no idea you knew that kind of language!"

"You should get up to your classroom quickly and grab the front seats," Edessa said enthusiastically, handing Vesper her schedule back. "Tueri's a great teacher."

"Is he?"

"Oh, yeah. He's wonderful, only just started last year, but he really knows his stuff, and he's really nice," Edessa said, smiling. "Always gives out points when they've been earned."

"Does Fabian know you have a crush on your teacher?" Vesper asked curiously. Edessa gave her a very dry look.

"You'll be eating your words later," she promised. "You'll love him."

"Mm-hmm. Oh, look, there's Fabian!" Vesper said, grinning and waving as the red-haired boy came striding into the Great Hall. "Shall I tell him he's in a soon-to-be-painful love triangle?" Edessa shot her a disgruntled look, hitched a smile on her face and darted away toward Fabian. "Is that a yes or a no?" Vesper called after her sister, her shoulders raised, palms open. She glanced at the boys, who had been listening to their little interaction. "That's the problem with women; no communication." Sirius laughed.

"What d'you reckon?" James said, in a low voice. "Worth sitting in the front-row to find out?"

"Well, Edessa doesn't lie," Vesper sighed. "So I'd say we should go for it. Have you finished?" She glanced at their empty plates—Remus was finishing the last of a cup of hot-chocolate. "It'll probably take us fifteen minutes to find the bloody classroom!"

They did manage to leave the Great Hall before the majority of the other students, yet even so, Vesper had a feeling they would probably run a little late in getting to their designated Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. The trouble was that there were a hundred and forty-two staircases—so said Remus: there were wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones they didn't quite trust their weight on; there were some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway down you had to remember to jump or get your foot stuck in it. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place; there were doors that weren't really doors at all, but were blank spaces of solid wall just pretending. Then there was the fact that the subjects of paintings tended to move about a lot, and James swore the suits of armour could move.

Within twenty minutes of leaving the Great Hall—leaving another good twenty minutes before their first lesson actually began—they had stumbled through several hidden passageways hidden by tapestries, and a watercolour portrait of a rather beautiful witch in a silk gold-clasped chiton, two leopards gambolling at her hems, a white-sailed boat rippling the water beyond her balcony, who had been watching them pass her painting at least six times, chattering excitedly and laughing in their profound lack of any sense of direction, hinted that if they were trying to escape the school, they should try looking behind the great gilt-framed mirror to her left.

"Er—escape? Why would squeezing behind a mirror help?" James frowned.

"Is this one of the secret passages?" Vesper breathed, dancing over to the mirror, which stood at least twice as tall as she was, and reflected the entire corridor; her, pink-cheeked, her pale, silvery hair slightly mussed from constant running about for the last half-hour, and the boys, in various states of disarray, their robes falling off their shoulders, bags dragged on the floor behind them; James's hair stood up on end from the number of times he'd run his hands through it in frustration, his glasses sliding to the end of his nose as he laughed at Sirius, playfully flirting with the witch in the painting.

"Sirius, that's Circe—you keep flirting with her and she'll turn you into a pig!" Vesper said, turning to frown at the mirror. "How does it open? Ask."

"Maybe just…tap it," Remus said, shrugging slightly, approaching her side.

"I did that to my Mum's best feather stole, trying to turn it into a more interesting pattern," James said, reaching Vesper's other side. "It ignited; she wasn't impressed. Well, I told her, she'd had the thing for twenty years; Dad was due to treat her to a new one!" He snorted, and Vesper drew out her wand, frowning at the mirror.

"_Alohamora_! …_Apertus_ …_Specialis __Revelio_!" she said, tapping the polished glass before her. Without realising it, they had all frozen, breathless, waiting. Vesper sighed, pocketing her wand, and turned away.

"Vesper!" Remus said, his voice soft but excited, and she turned around; the mirror had, slowly, begun to swing open, revealing a very neat archway of very worn stone. Neat, deep steps led down, into the dark.

"Where does it go?" James asked breathlessly, delighted.

"Dunno—Sirius, ask the witch," Vesper said, and Sirius murmured to the painting.

"She says it comes out in Hogsmeade—or right on the border," he said eagerly, giving his lazy, wolfish grin. "What d'you reckon? Go explore?"

"We…" Remus blushed slightly as the others caught his eye. "We really shouldn't miss our very first lesson."

"Mm," Sirius grunted, pale eyes scanning the visible parts of the passage. "I suppose you're right. Wouldn't do to get expelled before we've even had our first Defence lesson. Need to know how to ward off the parents first." James snorted, and together, Vesper and Remus closed the mirror over the entrance to the passage; with the softest of squelching noises, the passage was completely sealed. They stopped to ask another painting—a noble-looking wizard with a lace ruff, long curls and a rather handsome plum-coloured plume in his high hat—the way to their Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, and realised they'd somehow managed to climb up a floor too far in their initial search of it.

The only problem was, as soon as they reached the foot of the staircase to the third floor, they were set upon by Peeves. Vesper had been told about the resident poltergeist by Edessa; apparently, he was worth two locked doors and a trick stair if they met him when they were in a hurry. According to Edessa, he would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with walking-sticks or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose and screech "_Got __your __conk_!"

Vesper wouldn't have minded that; she had once petitioned Uncle Albus to move Peeves to Uncle Septimus's house, to liven things up. Professor Dumbledore had claimed even he didn't have the power to keep Peeves from the school forever. As for his little pranks, she had grown of such rudimentary tricks by the time she was six, but telling Peeves he lacked imagination in execution of his destructive impulses was apparently not the right thing to say.

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><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: Did you like? I might submit chapter five in a little while, too.


	5. 05

**A.N.**: Please review! First thing I'm going to say! And, also, I uploaded the first chapter of _Fallen __Knights_, which is the sequel-story to _this_ fanfiction; it chronicles the adventures of Sirius and Vesper's daughter, Tristram, best-friend of HP. Also, I put a link in my profile page, showing what Vesper's robes look like, take a look if you want to.

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_05_

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><p>"Ow!" Sirius winced, shivering, as he rubbed the right side of his head. "He got me right in the ear."<p>

"At least it was only chalk," Vesper scowled, dumping her bag on one of the front desks; they had finally reached the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with the help of the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin ghost, who had heard their yells and screaming and threats and decided to see what was going on, driving Peeves away. "He didn't dump an entire bottle of ink over _you_." Something wet and cold trickled down the neck of Vesper's robes, and she pulled out her wand, tapping her own head and muttering the cleaning charm Tisiphone had taught her, "_Scourgify_!"

"I'm usually on the _other_ end of ink-pellets," James remarked, trying to wipe ink off his nose with the sleeve of his robes.

"If we write a map of Hogwarts," Sirius said, still rubbing his sore ear, "we should make sure we always know where Peeves is."

"And Mr Filch," Remus said darkly, glancing at Vesper.

"You'd think he'd be grateful for me clearing up all that ink. _No_. I get a point deducted for using magic in the corridor," Vesper said indignantly. She had used the same scouring charm on a rather handsome albeit well-worn rug in the corridor that she had just used on her hair.

"Andromeda says he's a squib," Sirius said quietly. "You probably annoyed him doing something so easily when he has to clean the Muggle way."

"Well, next time I'll know not to try and help," Vesper said tersely. "And then I'll just remind him about my lost points when he says I've created a load of mess he'll have to clear up."

"The road to Hell's paved with good intentions," James said sagely, scooting into a seat beside Sirius; Vesper sat on Sirius's left side, and Remus took the last seat in the row beside her, next to the window.

"Men and their egos," Vesper snorted impatiently. "I wonder if there's a spell to _remove_ them. Men are so _delicate_."

"_I__'__m_ not delicate!" James protested.

"Oh, no, Mr I-Need-to-Stop-and-Catch-My-Breath!" Sirius laughed. "I hope the Gryffindor Quidditch team goes through endurance training before matches."

"Don't worry, you've got a year to bulk up, Jaz," Vesper said, reaching out to squeeze his rather puny upper-arm.

"Yeah, well, you'd best hope you don't put any weight on before the Seeker slot opens up, missy!" James retorted, and Vesper smirked.

"Oh, James, don't you know never to bring up a lady's weight?" Remus said quietly.

"No."

"That explains it," Sirius said, giving one of his wolfish grins. "I got shoved into the grandfather clock with a Boggart for telling Narcissa she looked like an elephant's saggy backside in her new silver dressrobes." Vesper burst out laughing, both at the story and at Sirius's expression; obviously the memory of the Boggart still haunted him.

Gradually, the rest of their class seemed to stumble into the right room, and the desks filled up. Everyone was either so full of anticipation for their teacher to arrive, or too shy around a roomful of strangers, that nobody but the four at the front spoke. The other girls took seats behind them and looked around, quiet but observant. At nine o'clock, the professor arrived. He was a young-looking man with hair the colour of dark gold, hazel eyes and a very good-natured smile, and he threw his satchel on his desk before hopping up onto it, tossing a stack of papers onto the polished desk beside him.

"Morning!" he said brightly, flashing an easy grin, putting his feet up on a chair before him, clasping his hands as he propped his elbows on his knees. "I'm Professor Tueri. My first name is Alexander, which means 'peoples' defender'. I started teaching here last year; I'm twenty-five years old, and used to work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but things got a bit hairy when I disagreed with a few bills they're trying to push through the Wizengamot. My favourite colour is yellow, and I like collecting Chocolate Frog cards, so if any of you have Lamia, I'll trade you for her. So! Let's take the register. When I call your name, I'd like you to tell us something…_quirky_ about yourselves. Who've we got first? Sirius Black. Where are you, Sirius?"

"Here," Sirius said lazily, raising a hand.

"Alright, tell us something interesting about yourself."

"I'm the first Black in three hundred and forty-seven years to be Sorted into a House that wasn't Slytherin—and I'm the only one who's ever been Sorted into Gryffindor," Sirius said, a bite of pride in his voice.

"You checked?" James said, glancing at Sirius. He shrugged.

"Absolutely. Wanted to know what the family did to _them_, so I'd know what to expect," Sirius said, and Vesper laughed.

"Well, whatever happened to them—" Professor Tueri said, frowning subtly as he looked up at the ceiling in thought, "—well, there are Wizengamot laws that protect underage wizards from their families if necessary."

"That's very comforting, thank you," Sirius said lazily, and Vesper grinned.

"Don't mention it," Professor Tueri said, waving a hand idly as he checked his register. "Alright, we've got—oh, another Cœurvaill…"

"Hey! I know Edessa's a drag, what with her new prefect badge, but sound any more disappointed and I might take offence," Vesper said, and Professor Tueri grinned, chuckling.

"I suppose this makes you Vesper?" he said, nodding. "Well, Edessa did warn me to be prepared for you! Tell us something about yourself."

"Well, I've got eight sisters, one brother; we live with our dad in his uncle's house, which also serves as a sanctuary for abused house-elves. I'm a blood-traitor and proud; my favourite song is 'All Day and All of the Night' by a Muggle band called The Kinks, and I think I'd like to be a witch-version of Indiana Jones. Or a Hobbit." Professor Tueri stared at her, as did the boys.

"Well, I did say 'quirky'," Professor Tueri said bracingly, and he let out a laugh as he grinned, "But I barely understood a quarter of that! Did anyone?"

"Uh…" The little voice came from behind Vesper, and, glancing over her shoulder, Lily blushed as everyone glanced at her; she had her hand halfway in the air. "The Hobbit is a Muggle story," she said shyly. "My dad read it to me once when I was ill. And Indiana Jones is an adventurous professor in the cinema. He's very cool," Lily added, eyes sparkling warmly as she caught Vesper's eye.

"Excellent!" Professor Tueri smiled. "Well, girls, you'll have to tell me what a Hobbit _is_ at some point."

"You can borrow my book if you want," Vesper said brightly. "I brought it with me—and you don't have to know _anything_ about Muggles to read it, because it's all made-up. You don't have Morgause's Chocolate Frog card in your collection, do you?"

Professor Tueri frowned thoughtfully. "I might do." Vesper gasped, launching herself halfway across her desk in supplication, hands clasped before her.

"Can I _have __it_? _Please_? I'll lend you _The __Hobbit_, and my Kinks album—I'm sure I have Lamia in my card collection—_and_ I'll teach you how to play _Jenga_," Vesper begged coaxingly, making her eyes widen imploringly. The boys were laughing; Professor Tueri was chuckling.

"We'll see. Once I've read _The __Hobbit_," he said.

"I think you'll like it. It's interesting what monsters the Muggle has put in his story. Some of them are quite close to Dark Creatures. Like Acromantula," Vesper said thoughtfully, and Professor Tueri's eyebrows rose interestedly.

"I might just have to take you up on your offer. That does sound interesting," he said, turning to his register. "Who've we got next? Lily Evans." Vesper glanced over her shoulder as Lily timidly raised her hand. "You're Lily, are you? Tell us something interesting about you."

"Um…" Lily said, twisting her hands in her lap, frowning at her desk as she tried to think of something, colour rising in her cheeks as the seconds ticked past.

"She's a Muggle-born!" Vesper said brightly, taking pity on her.

"Don't hold _that_ against her," Juniper Zimmerman frowned.

"I'm not!" Vesper scowled at her. She turned to the rest of the class, and Professor Tueri. "I'm saying I'm fascinated by her, because she's Muggle-born, and knows _all_ about the Gunpowder Plot, and Queen Victoria, and the 'Jerusalem' poem by William Blake that isn't actually the _real_ 'Jerusalem' poem, and the six wives of Henry the Eighth, and _The_ _Beatles_! You're a font of knowledge about Muggle culture, which is fascinating—at least to me," Vesper blurted very quickly, gazing at Lily, and something clicked in her memory, and she peered closer at Lily. "Have you ever been _skiing_?"

"Yes, I have," Lily brightened. "In February."

"_Wow_," Vesper breathed. She had heard of Skiing; Uncle Septimus had said she would probably break her skeleton if she attempted it. It was all about strapping two planks of wood to your feet and using them to navigate your way down a snowy mountain. It sounded _very_ fun. But she didn't understand how Muggles got to the tops of the mountains in the first place, or after they'd skied down, if they couldn't use Apparition.

"Lily, do you have anything to add?" Professor Tueri asked kindly.

"I…played the Queen of Hearts when our school did a production of _Alice __in __Wonderland_," Lily said. "It's a Muggle novel."

"An actress. Very cool," Professor Tueri said, nodding approvingly. "Now, we've got Remus Lupin. Where are you, Remus?" He smiled kindly at Remus, who sat hunched and shy next to Vesper.

"I… I can recite whole plays by William Shakespeare," he mumbled uncertainly.

"Even _I__'__ve_ heard of him," Professor Tueri grinned. "That's very impressive. Have we got a Mary?" Mary raised her hand.

"I know how to knit, and I can play Chopin on the piano," Mary said, probably a little more confident after so many had been chosen before her to speak. Vesper whirled around in her seat, grinning.

"I bullied Edessa into shrinking the pianoforte from our bedroom so she could bring it with us to school," she grinned. "When we get it out in the common-room, we could play duets!" Mary beamed.

"My parents made me take lessons," Sirius remarked idly. "But I don't know who Chopin is."

"He's a Muggle composer. I'll lend you some of my Classical records—and KISS. I think you'd like them," Vesper said thoughtfully. With his lazy grin and contrasting attitudes from his family's, Vesper felt sure he wouldn't be amiss to a little Muggle rock.

"Have we got a Peter? Peter Pettigrew?" Professor Tueri asked, scanning the class with a frown. "Only three boys… Oh dear. I think he must be lost."

"I didn't see him at breakfast," Remus said quietly, frowning and biting his lip.

"He shares your dormitory, doesn't he?" Vesper asked Sirius, who shrugged.

"He was still getting dressed when we came down to meet you for breakfast," James said.

"Well, you must be James, then," Professor Tueri said, glancing at the black-haired, bespectacled boy on Sirius's other side.

"Indeed I am, sir," James said imperiously.

"So, tell us something about James."

"James used to have a pet piglet named Chauncey."

"What happened to him?" Vesper asked curiously, reminded of Ioveta's pet capuchin monkey in Jerusalem, who was a cupboard-lover and had frequent affairs with other witches and wizards who fed him more treats than Ioveta did.

"James's mother decided to pull a Circe and serve Chauncey up for Sunday lunch!" James said, with an anguished sob, biting his knuckle.

"Was the crackling any good?" Sirius asked, and James wailed, throwing himself down across his desk.

"That wasn't very sensitive, Sirius," Vesper admonished lightly, after smacking him lightly round the back of the head, the same way her dad did to her. "I told you, men are _delicate_. Especially Jaz Potter."

"I—am—not—delicate!" James yelped indignantly.

"Sure you're not," Professor Tueri smirked. "Who's Isabella?"

"I am," a little voice said.

"Alright, tell us something about yourself."

"I…I like playing football. I've got three older brothers," Isabella said quietly.

"Football," Professor Tueri said thoughtfully. "That's the Muggle sport, isn't it?" When Isabella nodded, he turned to his register again, glancing up at the last unnamed member of their class. "And you must be Juniper Zimmerman."

"Juni," she corrected. "And…I want to study dragons after Hogwarts."

"I hope you taste good with ketchup," Sirius remarked, and James laughed; Vesper grinned, shaking her head.

"Alright, well, that's everyone," Professor Tueri said, tossing his register aside. "Except Peter. So, let's begin." He hopped off his desk, grabbing the pile of papers, and handed everyone a piece of neatly-pressed parchment. "I'd like you to please list all of the Magical Creatures you've ever heard of—Yes, Mary?"

"Sir, I'm…I'm Muggle-born, I don't…"

"Ah, well, surely you've heard of vampires! Trolls! Even if you've come here reading about giants and witches from Muggle fairytales, and don't know a nogtail from a Kneazle, by the end of this year, you'll know about every creature from a pixie to a Manticore. Just write down every magical creature you've ever heard of," Professor Tueri said brightly, and Vesper raised her hand. "Yes, Vesper?"

"When you say 'magical creatures', are you asking us to answer from the perspective of a racist parchment-pusher in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, or as an impartial professor to impressionable young minds?" she asked, and Sirius and James turned to gape at her. "What?"

"Racist parchment-pushers?" Sirius snorted.

"What? Uncle Septimus says the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is a joke," Vesper shrugged, glancing at the professor apologetically. "It's a cesspool breeding-ground for wizards who think they're superior because they wrote the laws saying other races are forbidden wands because they're inferior. The fact that goblins and house-elves don't _need_ wands, and don't have the same restrictions on their magic that wizards do is immaterial. It's a matter of principal."

"It certainly is," Professor Tueri said gravely, but the corners of his lips twitched with concealed amusement. "I do hope you're going into politics, Vesper. You'd have the Ministry sorted out good and proper before your first year's out. Alright—for the sake of accuracy, write down a list of magical creatures, and other magical races, and part-humans."

"Hm." Vesper frowned.

"What, Vesper?" Professor Tueri laughed good-naturedly.

"Well, some races who _resemble_ humans in some ways don't like the comparison. Part-human," Vesper wrinkled her nose. "You're either human or you're not. And those who were _once_ human—like werewolves, for example—" Remus fidgeted in his seat beside her "—have experienced so much hatred and prejudice from wizards that they prefer not to be associated with beings of the same race, almost as much as humans don't want to admit that werewolves are still human _most__of__the__time_. And anyone with seven elder sisters can tell you that a houseful of women with PMS and access to wands is _far_ more dangerous than a werewolf who can only transform one night a month." Professor Tueri laughed.

"I see what they say about Cœurvaills—opinionated," he said.

"I think the full phrase is 'opinionated to a fault and, most of the time, eccentric to the point of insanity'," Vesper corrected, and the professor laughed again. Sirius and James smirked. "Anyway, with nine siblings, you learn to speak up or get sat on. And Sunday lunch wouldn't be Sunday lunch without conversation descending into how human superiority complexes are the root of all evil."

"How is human superiority the root of all evil?" James asked, frowning.

"Well, history and laws are always written by the winning team," Vesper said, "and you'll never find records where it's been the wizards' fault for goblin rebellions being sparked, and nobody cares that house-elves are enslaved, and as long as they're nowhere near _us_, nobody cares that giants are killing each other because they've been pushed out of their own territories. Wizard-kind has only itself to blame for its enemies, and its prejudices are going to be its downfall."

"I reiterate," Professor Tueri said, staring at Vesper with a kind of bemused wonder. "You'd do very well eradicating corruption in the Ministry."

"I could never spend my life in an office," Vesper said decisively. "I'll be rallying the troops when the downtrodden unite." Professor Tueri laughed loudly.

"Excellent—well, write down who's going to be in your army," he said, tapping her piece of parchment with his fingertip. "Everyone—five minutes to write down as many names of magical creatures and races as you can." There was a sudden scurry as people drew out quills and ink-bottles; there was a huffy sigh of annoyance from Lily, and a desperate sort of noise from Mary, who were both unused to using quills and ink, and every few seconds the sound of tearing parchment was punctuated by another growl of annoyance.

Vesper scribbled down as neatly and quickly as she could the names of creatures she had studied with Uncle Septimus, and the titles of other magical races, underlining the ones she viewed as 'Dark':

**Creatures**:

Kappas, hinkypunks, Manticores, griffins, Granian horses, Thestrals, Acromantula, Dementors, Grindylows, basilisks, billywigs, augureys, phoenixes, dragons, ashwinders, banshees, Boggart, bowtruckles, Bindimun, lethifold, ghoul, gnomes, clabbert, cockatrice, chimaera; pixies; crups; demiguise; diricawl; doxys; pogrebins, Red Caps; erkling, erumpent; fwooper; hippogriff; hippocampus; horklump; imps; yeti; Jarvey; Knarl; Kneazle; mooncalf; niffler; occamy; plimpy; Puffskein; Quintaped; ramora; Runespoor; Sphinx; unicorn

**Magical ****Races**:

goblins, giants, centaurs, house-elves, werewolves, vampires, merpeople; Veela; hag;

*Inferi – were once human…(?)

"Alright," Professor Tueri called, checking his pocket-watch. "Time's up! Let's see what you've got." He collected the papers, Vesper hastily scrawling her name at the top of hers, and shuffled through them, making thoughtful noises as he went around the room.

"Er—Sirius, you appear to have misspelled 'creature'," Professor Tueri said, frowning at Sirius's paper.

"No, I didn't. That's the name of my mother's house-elf," Sirius said.

"And…Walburga Black is…your mother?" Professor Tueri said, frowning at Sirius's paper.

"Yup. I didn't have enough time to write out the entire Black family-tree, so I thought I'd just give you the two main perpetrators of evil," Sirius said lightly.

"I appreciate that," Professor Tueri said. "Er, why do you believe Kreacher and your mother are Dark creatures?"

"Well, Kreacher _is_ evil," Sirius said fairly. "And I reckon my mum's got a bit of banshee flair mixed in with her Harpy blood. She's a bit of a hag, anyway."

"Oh," Professor Tueri said, trying not to smile. "That's some very interesting insight into your perception of evil magical creatures. Let's see… Remus and Vesper, you two have very thorough lists here…" He read through them. "Dementors… Lethifolds… Inferi! Did you have instruction in Dark Creatures before you came to Hogwarts?"

"Daddy and Uncle Septimus give us lessons in everything from poetry to bread-making to de-gnoming the kitchen-garden and re-enacting the most famous Quidditch plays in history," Vesper said. "They don't let us waste the day. And they encourage us to read a lot."

"I read a lot," Remus said quietly, and there was a sad note to his voice.

"Well, very good; it's nice to have someone in the class who can instigate group discussions," Professor Tueri smiled. "As for you two—Mary, Lily—you've got the most well-known magical species. But Lily, how do you know about Dementors?"

"Oh…my friend told me about them," Lily said, blushing.

"Daddy says it's wrong for wizards to ally with Dementors," Vesper said quietly, glancing at Lily. She didn't like Dementors, not at all. Tisiphone had told her all about them; she sometimes had to escort prisoners to Azkaban, being an Auror. "He says we shouldn't waste our time trying to keep house-elves and goblins downtrodden when Dementors need hunting to extinction."

"An opinion many share with you," Professor Tueri said, frowning subtly. "Well, I'm very glad some of you, at least, have heard of such things as Hinkypunks and Grindylows. By the end of this year, you'll all know far more about magical creatures than you've ever wished to. This term we're going to do a brief introduction into Dark Creatures, and I'll be teaching you how to appropriately deflect their attacks. I'm going to start off with a short lecture today about several different magical creatures; your homework is to use your own knowledge, and your copies of _Fantastic __Beasts __and __Where __to __Find __Them_ to complete this crossword by our next lesson, on Wednesday afternoon." He held up a stack of papers each printed with a crossword puzzle, the clues neatly handwritten below. "And whoever answers the bonus question correctly at the bottom of the page will receive a small prize, and five points for Gryffindor."

There was a smattering of delighted exclamations, and Sirius grinning, "I _love_ crosswords!" Professor Tueri grinned and put the crosswords back on his desk.

"Alright, everyone take out parchment or notebooks," he said, smiling, and touched his wand to the chalkboard. Notes, easy to read and illustrated with diagrams of a Hinkypunk, an illustration of a Red Cap, and a bullet-points on the origins of the hairy Quintaped appeared there, and for the remainder of their ninety-minute lesson, Professor Tueri lectured them on the very basics of what defined Dark creatures, why they were classified such, and the essentials on several species, particularly how to repel them. He promised that as the year went on, they would dedicate a lecture to each singular species, and would have practical sessions to practice spells and charms that worked against creatures such as Boggarts, and Grindylows.

Peter Pettigrew arrived, five minutes before the end of the lesson, accompanied by a ghost in a ruff and stockings; he was white-faced and his cheeks were tear-streaked; he was also covered in dried ink.

"I do beg your pardon for this young boy's lateness, Professor Tueri," the ghost said sombrely. "I only just managed to find Mr Filch to convince him to extricate this young boy from a rather large urn on the sixth-floor."

"Oh, dear—was that Peeves?" Professor Tueri asked Peter kindly; he nodded, his lower-lip trembling, eyes shining. Professor Tueri looked around the rest of the class. "Alright, I think we'll leave things here for today. Why don't you pack up your things and head off to your next lesson. Peter, why don't you stay behind for a moment, alright…"

Vesper packed up her things, and took a crossword from Professor Tueri as he said goodbye to them at the door, and, tucking it neatly into her _Fantastic __Beasts __and __Where __to __Find __Them _textbook, they left Peter Pettigrew looking rather frightened at the prospect of being left alone with the professor whose entire class he had just missed.

"D'you know," Sirius said thoughtfully, folding his crossword in half and running his thumb and forefinger over the fold until it was crisp, "I think we'd do best to make an ally of Peeves."

"How d'you mean?" James asked.

"That does make sense," Vesper said at the same time. James glanced at her, perplexed. "Edessa says he always goes after first years in the first months of a new school-year, before they've learned enough magic to repel him… How d'you go about making an alliance with a poltergeist?"

"I suppose we could ask Professor Tueri," Remus said, his lips quirking at the corners. "He seems to really know what he's going on about, doesn't he?"

"Yeah!" Sirius said eagerly, grinning. "D'you reckon he'll bring creatures into class for us to study?"

"Probably. Seems kind of hands-on," James remarked.

"Reckon he'll let us practice hexes on Kreacher?" Sirius asked. "He's a right shitty little—"

"Sirius!" A tall, mahogany-haired girl with Sirius's high cheekbones came striding toward them from the other end of the corridor. Vesper's eyes were snagged instantly by how shiny her hair was, and her _boots_.

"Are those dragon-hide?" she gasped softly, half-squatting to peer closely at the glossy, iridescent purplish-turquoise boots, Cuban-heeled with silver toes and shining silver buttons up the outer ankles.

"The _finest_!" the girl declared, beaming, as she came up short before Sirius, who looked a little disgruntled and pink-cheeked.

"My sister has a pair that go up to her knees. They're fuchsia and gold," Vesper said softly. She _adored_ Bethany's dragon-hide boots.

"Well, Bethany has wonderful taste," the girl smiled. Vesper glanced up, blinking, and caught sight of the silver-green tie neatly knotted at the girl's throat.

"You knew Bethany?" she frowned bemusedly. The other girl smiled brilliantly.

"Of course."

"But you're in Slytherin!"

The girl smiled, but it wasn't as warm as the first smile she had given Vesper. "What has that to do with anything?" Vesper's eyebrows rose, and she glanced at Sirius, before glancing back at the girl.

"You're Sirius's cousin—the one who listens to Fleetwood Mac and reads Jane Austen," she gasped. The girl's dark eyes rested on Sirius, before she chuckled softly and smiled, rumpling his hair.

"I am Sirius's cousin, yes," she said, and the warmth returned to her smile. "My name is Andromeda Black. And you, I think, must be… _Vesper_?"

"That's me," Vesper said, eyeing her warily. Andromeda smiled beautifully.

"Yes, my last letter from Bethany said you were to start Hogwarts this year," she said, chuckling softly, "and she warned me that if you learned I had an entire collection of records by The Beatles, you'd scrape your fingers to the bone carving your way through the dungeon walls to get into the Slytherin common-room for them."

"_You_ have records by The Beatles?" Vesper gaped.

"Yes. One of my friends adores them," Andromeda said, her eyes warming richly. James and Vesper gaped at her. Andromeda winked subtly. "Just because I'm a Slytherin doesn't mean I hold Salazar's old prejudices… Well, not anymore. Though it's taken me far longer than it took Sirius here to realise blood tradition isn't everything. I would never have been Sorted into Gryffindor when I was eleven." She rumpled Sirius's dark hair affectionately.

"It's alright, Dromeda, you only ever had the example Bellatrix set," Sirius sniffed, patting Andromeda's forearm delicately.

"Yes, well, I'd prefer not to follow her to Azkaban," Andromeda said tersely, and her eyes hardened suddenly. They softened when she once again turned to look at Sirius. "Speaking of Harpy relatives—did you receive any letters from home this morning?"

"Nope," Sirius said unconcernedly.

"Oh, good," Andromeda sighed, sounding relieved for some reason. "I thought Cissy might write home gloating that you'd not been Sorted into Slytherin."

"Cissy's aware of other _people_?" Sirius gaped. "Whoa. Slytherin, House of Personal Growth."

"Not quite," Andromeda said, her lip curling. She sighed. "Anyway—why aren't you in lessons?"

"Skived," Sirius shrugged carelessly.

"I'm sure," Andromeda smirked, eyes dancing onto the others, to James, with his untidy hair, to quiet Remus, hiding behind them, smiling again at Vesper. "You were let out early? You _must_ have had Tueri."

"How d'you know that?" Sirius frowned at her. Andromeda smiled.

"Tueri's a wonderful teacher; he's very kind," she said. "Where are you off to next?"

"Potions." It was the first time Remus had spoken up, and Andromeda smiled.

"Oh, Sluggy's not going to be happy he was cheated out of _you_," she said, touching Sirius's cheek affectionately. "We've all been in Professor Slughorn's House," she added to the others.

"Is he that nepotistic old fart?" Sirius asked, frowning, and Andromeda laughed.

"Yes, he does have a particular flair for nepotism," she sighed.

"I think I might've met him once," Vesper said thoughtfully. "Professor Slughorn? With a great big moustache?"

"That's him," Andromeda smiled. "I think he's supposed to be a friend of your great-uncle's. Or a former colleague, at least."

"Oh, yeah, I remember him now," Vesper grumbled; Uncle Septimus was famous for his raucous parties. Christmas and Midsummer were the most vibrant and rambunctious of them all, and at one particular Bonfire Night celebration, Vesper had been introduced to a very rotund man with a shining moustache that quivered every time he laughed; he loved elf-made wine, and drank a little too much of it, was always dropping names of people in high places, and seemed to enjoy the comforts and advantages they provided for him. Andromeda chuckled.

"Yes, Sluggy's very memorable," she sighed, smiling ironically. "Well, I have to get to Arithmancy—oh, you'd better run."

"Why?"

"Fifth-year Slytherins," Andromeda said in a low voice. "They're looking to continue the tradition of hazing first-years through corporal punishment."

"What tradition?" James asked with a slight yelp, eyes widening as he peered past Andromeda, who had checked over her shoulder, and sure enough, several much taller boys had appeared at the top of a staircase, each of them wearing a silver and green tie, one of them flashing a silver prefect badge on his robes. Several of the boys were carrying what looked like flat Beaters' bats, each of them customised with carvings, paint and ink.

"Ugh, how did _Malfoy_ get named a prefect?" Sirius scoffed, sneering down the corridor at him. "He's a worthless git."

"Yes, well, he's also a two-faced snake," Andromeda said quietly, exhaling with a soft scowl. "Knows how to charm Professor Slughorn. Gets away with lot."

"Don't I know it," Sirius scowled.

"Sirius, don't dwell on it," Andromeda said sagely, apparently speaking about something only the two of them knew about. "At least, not until you've got a few good counter-curses under your hat."

"Don't worry," Sirius growled softly. "I've been practicing."

"Please tell me you haven't been hexing Regulus," Andromeda said, looking pained.

"I haven't been hexing Regulus," Sirius repeated blandly.

"You are _trouble_," Andromeda sighed. "Well, go on, get moving before they spot you. Your arses will be purple before the day's out if they catch you."

"That's reassuring," Sirius said in a low voice, as they ducked behind a tapestry they had found earlier, hiding a passage down to the first floor.

"At least it'll keep us vigilant," James remarked. "They haze first-years? Surely the professors put a stop to that."

"They probably did," Remus said quietly.

"That's why only the _Slytherins_ were carrying those paddles," Vesper said darkly. "They don't exactly help their own reputation for nasty, not-niceness, do they? Which classroom are we supposed to be in?"

"Er… Dungeon seventeen," James said, checking his colour-coded schedule. "Damn it!"

"What?" Remus frowned.

"We're supposed to share the class with the Slytherin first-years," James scowled.

"Well, we can live in the hope that their cauldrons explode," Sirius said gloomily, and he poked his head around the painting the passage was hidden behind.

"Or throw a wet-start, no-heat Filibuster firework in their Strengthening Solution to speed up the process," Vesper said, and Sirius shot her a grin.

"It looks safe," he said softly, and they crept out of the passage, into the corridor.

"Well, well, well, boys, look; a couple of first years!" a voice crooned evilly, and the boys whirled around. Several large, older boys—not including the pale-haired Slytherin prefect—had crowded at the other end of the passage, smacking paddles against their palms.

"Run!" James shouted, and they ran, the heavy footfalls of the older boys echoing in off the walls behind them. They ran all the way through the first floor; Vesper and Sirius both slid down the banisters of the marble staircase into the Entrance Hall, and James and Remus caught up with them halfway down the dungeon passageway, panting.

"Surely," Sirius panted, the heel of his palm kneading his chest over his heart, "surely since corporal punishment has been banned in the Muggle world—it has, hasn't it?—then, being taught they're a higher form of civilisation, those Slytherins will realise they've failed to evolve by relishing the idea of beating young kids to a pulp."

"I don't think Muggle laws on corporal punishment are high on their list of interests," Vesper panted. She frowned, straightening up. "I don't know why _I__'__m_ panicking about getting a bruised butt; they're only going after you boys."

"Hey, solidarity, sister! Strength in numbers!" James wheezed, and Sirius chuckled, watching him with his hands on his knees, struggling for breath.

"I reiterate my point about endurance training, Potter," he said, nudging James in the back of the knee with his foot, making him half-topple over, staggering to maintain balance. The boys chuckled. Remus looked slightly pained as he quietly regained a normal breathing-pattern, his cheeks a little ashen.

"Are you alright? You've gone…grey," Vesper said worriedly. Remus gave him a tiny smile that might have been ironic.

"I'm alright," he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the entrance to the passage. "Can we… Can we get somewhere that's not so…I don't know, exposed?"

"Good idea," Sirius nodded, scanning the corridor. "There's dungeon seventeen. C'mon."

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: Please review! I have nothing to do until next Monday-morning when my next university seminar is! Keep me entertained, as I have entertained you! Oh, also, it would be lovely if you could give me some ideas for a first conflict with Snape, something that would goad the boys (and Vesper) to sneak out for a midnight duel (mirroring HP/RW's "duel" with DM in _their_ first year!).


	6. 06

**A.N.**: I had fun writing this and the next chapter. Might've been something to do with being able to dream up potions ingredients and things grown in the Herbology greenhouses! It's rejuvenated my desire to go to Hogwarts—and I've also become obsessed (okay, I was anyway) with the Weasley twins' shop. Perhaps because my girl Tristram is a co-founder and inventor for the shop, and I've been having fun making up products for her to 'invent'. Anyway, please enjoy, and review!

* * *

><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_06_

* * *

><p>They entered the potions dungeon, a large, strange room scattered with polished but very worn desks pushed together, their cauldrons already set up, and each of the curved walls and niches was lined with shelves of jars upon jars of the most bizarre and curious potions ingredients ever seen. In one shady corner, great bundles of herbs and flowers and plants dangled from the ceiling, adding an almost tangible perfume to the air. It was surprisingly warm in the dungeon, probably something that had to do with the numerous cauldrons spread about the room under which fires burned, keeping the contents of the cauldrons simmering and bubbling happily.<p>

"Where d'you want to sit?" James said, looping his satchel from over his head, and glancing around the dungeon classroom.

"Here," Sirius said, after having peered in every full cauldron under which a fire burned. "This potion looks the most interesting." They let their satchels fall to the floor under the four desks pushed together at the back of the classroom, beneath the bundles of herbs and dried plants, jars glittering everywhere they looked around them.

"Oi, James!" Sirius chuckled; he had dumped his bag and gone wandering; Vesper pushed her satchel beneath the desk beside his, with Remus next to her and James opposite, and wandered after Sirius. "I don't think your mum turned Chauncey into Sunday lunch."

"Why not?" James asked absently, peering with a grimace at several jars of pickled eyes and cockroach ears.

"I think the Potions Master's pickled him," Sirius said, pointing out a larger jar, in which a very small piglet had been preserved in greenish liquid.

"Chauncey!" James gasped, horrified, dashing over to Sirius to fall to his knees before the jar. "What's he _done _to you?"

"I wonder if my mother's heart is pickled somewhere in here," Sirius said thoughtfully, turning to gaze around the shelves of jars, and Vesper snorted as she wandered along the walls, reading the neat labels on jars.

"Look at all this stuff. Billywig stings, Doxy venom, ebony, albino eagle feathers, anemone pollen. Ashwinder eggs, snakeskin, ew—bat _guano_! Look! Buttered tarsier fingers. My sister Tisiphone used to have a pet Tarsier. He was so sweet. Leaves of the Whomping Willow tree; this jar looks new," she said thoughtfully. She grinned and picked one jar off the shelf, holding it above her head as she approached Sirius. "Pucker up; it's powdered mistletoe." Sirius crinkled his nose, laughing, and ducked away from her; she returned the powdered mistletoe to the shelf, grinning. "Do nightingales have teeth? Well, the professor's got them here. Hey, look! Fresh strawberries! And lavender honey. I wonder what potions they go into."

"There's Jobberknoll feathers over here," James said. "I've never seen a Jobberknoll before. Urgh! Mucus of Flobberworm. Pickled Horklump. Gross—a stewed horned-toad. Come and look at it! And rosewater!" he snorted.

"Look at all these herbs," Remus said, his eyes wandering over the ceiling; most of their desks were overshadowed by the great bundles of dried things dangling from small hooks.

"Smells nice," James said, inhaling deeply.

"That's wolfsbane," Remus said quietly, pointing out one blue-flowered herb. "Eucalyptus. Red valerian, purple basil. And this one's Castle yellow celosia; my mum makes flower arrangements with it when we go for long walks. And that's elderflower. Daffodils! I wonder what they go into… Stinging-nettles…"

"I hope there are some dock leaves about," Vesper said, eyeing the nettles.

"Look!" Sirius gasped, and they glanced around, scuttling over to where Sirius was gazing at a clear bell-jar filled with some beautiful, silvery substance that seemed to glow. "Unicorn blood!"

"I don't think wizards should make potions that need ingredients from a unicorn," Vesper said quietly, gazing at the blood nevertheless. It _was_ beautiful. It reminded her of the long strings of pearls her mother used to wear. "Or dragons, either."

"No beautifying potions for you, then," Sirius smirked, tweaking her cheek; Vesper swatted his hand away, smiling.

"You can't keep your hands off me without them," she said, glancing around at the jars nearby. "Look, aniseed! And pomegranate seeds. I _like_ those."

"I've never had one," James said, staring at the jar of glowing ruby-like seeds.

"We get them in our Christmas stockings," Vesper said adoringly. Christmas was her _favourite_ time of the year. Birthdays, holidays—Vesper always adored a party. "Mm, mallow-root." She stared petulantly at the root, thinking inexplicably of its sweet successor, the marshmallow, which drew her to her favourite sweetshop in the world, Honeyduke's. "I can't believe we have to wait till third year before we're allowed to go to Hogsmeade!"

"I've never been," Remus said quietly.

"I only have because Daddy took us whenever my sisters had trips from here," Vesper said, sighing, waving a hand idly about the dungeon. "Otherwise we only saw them at Christmas. _Very_ annoying that Edessa will be able to go and see the twins and I won't. And _Zonko__'__s_."

"What's Zonko's?"

"_Amazing_ joke-shop," James said emphatically. "Puts Gambol and Jape's to shame."

"My parents wouldn't let me go in," Remus said, a smile tickling the corners of his lips, and his eyes looked bright. "But my dad gave me a book on joke jinxes on the sly."

"It's always the quiet ones," Sirius said, clapping a hand on Remus's shoulder with an approving grin.

"Wonder what all these potions are," James said, peering into a small cauldron by the teacher's desk.

"Well, I know none of them are Uncle Septimus's homemade cider, that's for certain," Vesper said, sighing heavily. The dungeon doorway swung open a little wider, and a protuberant belly stretched over with beautifully embroidered velvet and burnished buttons preceded a walrus-moustached man into the room. His moustache quivered when large, rather protuberant eyes lanced from Vesper, to Remus, to James teetering precariously on a stool to peer into a cauldron, to Sirius, picking through jars of ingredients.

"Tut, tut!" he admonished. "You're supposed to wait outside in the corridor."

"We were just looking, Professor," Remus said, flushing at being caught doing something he oughtn't.

"Curiosity can be a virtue," the professor said, and his golden-silver moustache quivered again as he smiled. "Well, let's see, who've we got here?" His large eyes rested from face to face. "Let's see if I have your names correct. You, I recognise instantly, Mr Potter; the image of your father. How is retirement treating him?"

"He's driving us up the wall," James said, hopping up onto his desk, swinging his legs.

"Well, that should please him!" the professor said, chuckling. "And, let's see… Mr Lupin, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And _you_, you naughty scamp! Threw everyone for a loop, not to mention cheating me! I don't deny it; I feel cheated out of the full set," the professor said, eyes on Sirius. "I've had all of your cousins."

"I can only apologise profusely for that, sir," Sirius said idly, and the professor chortled. When Vesper laughed, it seemed to draw his attention, and the professor's large eyes swept over her extremely pale, silvery hair, the cinnamon-honey tone of her skin, her blue eyes.

"Well, well, and who is this charming young lady?" he asked.

"Vesper—"

"Cœurvaill! Yes! Must've been the boldest first-year up there last evening. Well, you're following in your sisters' footsteps in Gryffindor, are you?" he said, chuckling approvingly.

"Well, not Edessa's," Vesper grimaced. "She's a _prefect_ now."

"Speaking of your sisters—what is Ioveta up to these days?" the professor asked curiously.

"She's working for the Ministry of Magic in Israel. I think she's working towards becoming a citizen there," Vesper said.

"Indeed!" the professor exclaimed. "Well, Ioveta always did have lofty ambitions—and the brains and conviction to reach them. Charming, she was. Well, I am glad she's doing well; she was one of my favourites, you know. And Una and Tisiphone too—very charming girls. Beautiful, too." His eyes flickered over Vesper's unique colouring once more. "I don't suppose you know what Una gets up to these days."

"Well, she's an Unspeakable," Vesper sighed, "so I think only _she_ really knows what she gets up to!"

"And how is your Uncle Septimus?" the professor asked. "It's been a while since I've been able to attend one of his famed parties."

"Oh, he's just as eccentric as ever," Vesper beamed fondly.

"No doubt, my dear, no doubt," the professor chuckled. "He was a crazy old bat when _I_ first met him. Must've been something to share a dormitory with when he and Dumbledore were at school! Peas in a pod, though, I'd expect."

"I'd imagine so," Vesper grinned. She loved it when Uncle Albus came over for Sunday lunch or Christmas dinner. The dungeon door opened again, and a sheet of dark red hair and a dubious pale face peered around it.

"Ah! Fresh meat!" the professor said enthusiastically, and Lily jumped. "Come in, my dear, come in. I'll not make you wait outside in the corridor today, as these fine youngsters decided to dive in. Find a table, my dear, and we'll wait for the rest of the class to arrive."

"Sir?" Remus said quietly.

"Yes, Remus, m'boy?"

"I think Peter Pettigrew might be late," Remus said.

"Why should he be late?" the professor asked, blinking at Remus, eyebrows raised.

"Well, he spent all last lesson in an urn on the sixth floor, apparently," Vesper said.

"Oh dear," the professor sighed. "First years always are so susceptible to Peeves." Gradually, the dungeon classroom began to fill.

"Is everyone here?" the professor called, checking the outside corridor, and he swung the door closed as he ducked back into the dungeon. "Mr Lupin, I think you're quite right about your Pettigrew classmate. Where did you Gryffindors come from?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts, sir," Remus said politely.

"Ah, well, Tueri's a good chap," the professor said. "He'll set your friend right about missing a lesson. I daresay Pettigrew will find his way down here in a little while. Right! Well! Welcome to Potions! I am Professor Slughorn, and I will be instructing you for the next five years, at least, in the art of potion-brewing." His enormous outline shivered through the many shimmering vapours spiralling into the air from the cauldrons scattered across the room.

"Now, before we begin," Professor Slughorn said, inhaling deeply so his double waistcoats strained against his bulging belly, "I'd like you to take a few notes down on rudimentary potion safety. Who can tell me what some of the most important rules are to follow when brewing potions?" A hand stuck up at a Slytherin table. "Yes, m'boy?"

"Always clean cauldrons thoroughly before and after use," said the greasy-haired boy from the Hogwarts Express, Lily's friend.

"Excellent," Professor Slughorn nodded. "Failure to clean cauldrons properly can turn even the most innocent of brews into a deadly poison. Not that I wish to steal Professor Flitwick's thunder in your first Charms lesson, but I would like you all to please write down this useful little scouring charm; '_Scourgify_'. In the coming weeks, I'd like you to practice using this charm, as it'll save a lot of time cleaning up, and is the most thorough way to ensure your cauldron is free of harmful residues…" He tapped the chalkboard behind him, where the incantation and method for the cleaning charm appeared. "Now, any other rules? Yes, Sirius?"

"Don't taste-test to check potions are ready," Sirius said, and the rest of the class laughed; Professor Slughorn chortled heartily. The boy named Snape looked extremely sour that Sirius had earned such a good laugh, while he himself had given a very practical answer.

"Nay, indeed, do not taste-test!" Professor Slughorn chuckled. "Very good. Anything else?" Remus put his hand up timidly. "Yes, Remus?"

"Always read the labels on jars, and check they ingredients inside are really what the label says," he said quietly, and it looked like Professor Slughorn was straining to hear him over the glug and bubble of potions simmering nearby.

"Very good! Always check the labels. The wrong ingredient, while sometimes you may get lucky in _improving_ a potion by innovation, sometimes chalk can really be powdered erumpent-horn, and the difference between…well, life and _death_."

Professor Slughorn tapped the chalkboard with his wand again.

"Pull your notebooks out, please, and copy these notes down," he said, and there was a few moments' silence as everyone scribbled on pieces of parchment and in notebooks. When the last quill had stopped scratching, Slughorn beamed around at them. "Good. Now, I took the liberty of concocting a few potions for you to have a look at, examples of the work you'll be able to produce by the end of your O.W.L. year."

And he went around the room, thumbs hooked on the pockets of his topmost waistcoat, his gold pocket-watch chain glinting in the fires crackling beneath several cauldrons, moustache quivering as he had them leave their seats to gather around specific cauldrons, to explain their effects, and the method behind their production, the difficulties and fiddly instructions of the more complex potions, and the allure of several potions like the Wit-Sharpening Draught, the Strengthening Solution, and the comic value of the Bubbling Beverage—which only Sirius and Vesper were brave enough to try when Slughorn asked for volunteers.

"It's like being tickled from the inside!" Vesper shrieked, giggling shrilly and clutching her sides, as hundreds of tiny little bubbles seemed to explode into the tiniest of feathers in her stomach, while Sirius rolled around on the floor, giggling so hard his cheeks shone with tears of mirth, kicking his feet and clutching his stomach. For five minutes, the rest of the class couldn't stop themselves laughing at them; Vesper gradually became able to take back control of her own body, her cheeks shining with tears of mirth, her muscles sore from grinning so much, her sides cramped from being hunched up and giggling so long. She and Sirius staggered to their feet, clutching at each other for support, rather weak-kneed and giddy.

"Now I know what happened that one Christmas when Tisiphone came home!" Vesper moaned, exhilarated, still giggling softly after laughing so much. The side-effect of the Bubbling Beverage was obviously a heightened sense of delight in the ordinary, because she couldn't stop grinning at Remus, and James, who had been in near-hysterics watching Sirius roll around on the floor. "I was only five; I didn't stop laughing for two hours—and they just kept laughing at me, which perpetuated the whole thing!"

"Yes, the Bubbling Beverage is a favourite for practical-jokes, especially slipping it into someone's drink," Professor Slughorn twinkled. "Very fun, and utterly harmless once the effects have worn off, though a lingering natural side-effect is sometimes being a little happier than usual after consumption. So! Those are just a few examples of the potions we will be working on in our journey together towards your O.W.L. examinations at the end of your fifth year. But I thought today, we'd start off with something very easy and very practical and rather fun. If you could all please turn to page two of _Magical __Drafts __and __Potions_ by Arsenius Jigger, we will split the next forty minutes into concocting Colour-Changing Ink, and Ink-Erasing Paste. Now, you can buy both of these from the school supply shop, but I thought it would be a rather fun little taste of what's to come in our next lesson together, letting you learn how to make them yourselves. So, scales out; the extra ingredients not in your kits are located in the cupboard. While the potions are simmering, feel free to explore the shelves, there are some quite remarkable ingredients littered about."

Vesper pulled out her old copy of _Magical __Drafts __and __Potions_ and found page two, dedicated to ink recipes, heavily scribbled-upon by Tisiphone, in inks of all shades and hues, shimmers and glowing effects in swirly, decorative calligraphy. The list of ingredients was very short, the total time to create the potion only fifteen minutes. The ingredients included water, cuttlefish blood, gum Arabic, and—

"_Streeler_ _penises_!" James burst out giggling, his eyes wide behind his glasses as he grinned at his copy of _Magical __Drafts_. Sirius and Vesper having taken the Bubbling Beverage not fifteen minutes ago, they descended into giggles, before Remus tugged on Vesper's hand, guiding her to the store-cupboard to fill a small vial with ten drops of undiluted cuttlefish blood, which they added to four fluid ounces of soft-water on a low heat, stirring gently counter-clockwise. They found a box of Streeler penises in the back cupboard, where several of the girls were giggling, pink-cheeked, over the little things, and Remus handed out one to each of them, also flush-faced.

"You know, I would have though you'd be a little more sensitive splitting _that_ open," James said, raising one eyebrow as he watched Sirius, who was having trouble slicing his Streeler penis open, which they had to do to release the juices, which apparently were the strongest source of the Streeler's colour-change fluids. "I mean, what if there's an accident in Transfiguration tomorrow and you end up turned into a Streeler? Is that how you'd want _us_ to handle _your_ penis?"

This was too much; Vesper descended into a fit of the giggles, while Professor Slughorn chuckled over the lingering effects of the Bubbling Beverage, and Sirius sank to the floor in a fit of violent but completely silent laughter.

"Alright, Mr Potter, where are we up to?" Professor Slughorn said; Vesper barely heard him, still clutching her stomach and panting for breath, still giggling silently, Sirius clinging to her for support as they tried to stand.

"Sir, I'm making a conscientious objection to the making of this potion, in light of the injuries sustained to creatures whose parts make up the ingredients," James said, his eyes twinkling wickedly as he glanced at Vesper and Sirius, who both descended into a less-violent but still crippling fit of giggles.

"You're such a dandy, Potter," Sirius said, hiccoughing as he wiped his cheeks on his sleeve, grinning from ear to ear. He picked up his silver knife, as Vesper panted and wiped her face with her fingers, perching on her stool, her lungs aching as much as her cheeks. He grabbed the Streeler part. "Look, just get a good _firm_ hold on it or it'll just flop about." Remus was shaking with silent laughter, trying not to make a sound to attract Professor Slughorn back to their table.

"You know," Vesper said thoughtfully, picking up the Streeler penis she had just punctured, "this is the first time I've played about with someone's willy. Rather small and unimpressive."

"Probably cut off before its prime," Sirius said solemnly, his eyes bright, lips twitching, and James let out an almighty giggle.

"Come along, back there! Don't want to lose those House points for messing about in lessons!" Professor Slughorn called, as their cheeks flushed and everyone stared across the room at them, at James, who had his forehead pressed to his chopping-board, giggling, at Sirius, whose head was thrown back, laughing his deep, bark-like laugh, at Remus, who was shaking with suppressed laughter, and at Vesper, whose pink cheeks shone with tears of mirth.

Eventually, they managed to complete their Colour-Changing Ink potions, and each of them emptied the contents of their cauldrons into a small cork-stopped glass inkwell, letting it sit on the corners of their desks for Professor Slughorn to have a look at while they got working on their Ink-Erasing Paste, which required a few more ingredients and much more attention, since frequent stirring was required so the solution, which became thicker and harder to stir as it boiled, didn't stick and burn to the bottom of their cauldrons. When the potion was so thick it all stuck to the spoon, they were supposed to scrape it off with their silver knife onto the chopping-board, and knead it into a ball, then flatten it, like a pencil-eraser. It was supposed to absorb ink, and they had to knead it every few weeks to refresh it, but after a month it had to be thrown out and a new one made.

"Is that everyone finished with their Ink-Erasing Paste?" Professor Slughorn called, marching about the room, his hands now in the pockets of his trousers, peering into cauldrons and bending to examine the contents of the little glass bottles. "Very good. We've got fifteen minutes left, I'd like you to form an orderly queue to wash up your things. While the rest of you are waiting, I'd like you to copy down the homework assignment; read the chapter on Homesickness Solutions from your _Magical __Drafts_ textbook, and I'd like you to summarise what you've read, focusing on the strengths and drawbacks of using such a potion."

"_Scourgify_!" Vesper said decisively, tapping her cauldron, and it sparkled with cleanliness. The boys followed suit, frowning and jabbing their wands at their cauldrons. James managed to ignite something within his, and Professor Slughorn had to swoop in to stop the spark from kindling any further. Vesper took out the homework diary Tisiphone had made for her and neatly, using some of the Colour-Change Ink she had just made, filled in her homework assignments;

Defence: _complete __crossword, __for __Wednesday_

Potions: _read __up __on __Homesickness __Solutions, __summarise; __strengths, __drawbacks, __for__Thursday_

"Very well, that's all; I'll let you leave a little early, and five points to Gryffindor each to Mr Black and Miss Cœurvaill for demonstrating the effects of consuming the Bubbling Beverage," Professor Slughorn said good-naturedly, ten minutes later, and it was surprising how cold the castle seemed after spending ninety minutes in the Potions dungeon, not to mention how little fragrance the air seemed to have. As they neared the Entrance Hall, however, a new scent arose, wafting from the Great Hall. _Lunch_.

"Ten points for Gryffindor!" James crowed. "He didn't give _any_ to Slytherin."

"You mean nine points," Vesper pointed out. "Remember that point Filch took off me earlier for cleaning up that ink?"

"Oh yeah," James said, his face falling. "Oh well! Lunch. Wonder what we're having!" Vesper inhaled, and quickened her pace; she smelled tomato soup; sure enough, littered down the polished, ancient House tables were great white tureens of fragrant, homemade tomato soup; fresh, crusty loaves and rolls were set out in breadbaskets, alongside pats of fresh butter, jugs of water, milk and pumpkin juice and pots of tea. There were also several china cake-stands, each piled high with slabs of chocolate tiffin.

"God, I'm starving!" James moaned, as they clambered onto benches opposite each other; James and Sirius one side, Vesper and Remus across from them, and Vesper reached out to start doling out large servings of soup while Remus handed the breadbasket around. They observed other students filing in, coming in from various classes, each of the different year-groups clustered together in clearly defined cliques, the first-years easily identifiable due to the fact that they all looked similarly overwhelmed and shy.

"Hey, look," Vesper said quietly, nodding to the small knot of boys just entering the Great Hall. Several Ravenclaw boys, identifiable by their sapphire and bronze ties, with faces Vesper vaguely recalled from the Sorting Ceremony last night, were wincing as they climbed onto benches. She leaned around, frowning.

"Are you alright?" she asked, and two of the boys who had sat nearby turned, wincing again. "Did you have a run-in with those fifth-year Slytherins?"

"It was vicious," one of the boys moaned, grimacing painfully as he adjusted his seat, wadding his robes beneath his bottom for padding.

"What were they doing, training for Death Eater initiation ceremonies?" Sirius growled softly, scowling over his shoulder at the Slytherin table.

"They've got a tally," the other boy said, wincing. Vesper thought his name was Oscar. "One of the Slytherins wrote down all our names at the Feast last night. They're marking how many times they get each of us."

"How many times did they get you?" Remus asked, half-sympathetically, half-aghast.

"Four," the second boy grimaced. "It's not so bad after the first few licks. My bum is actually numb. It's going to hurt later, though."

"Why didn't you run?" James asked.

"I would've, but a big gaggle of third-year girls came pouring out of a Transfiguration lecture," the second boy winced. "They're _idiots_."

"I got off alright," the first boy said. "The new Gryffindor prefect saw what was going on and docked points from Slytherin. They didn't like that. But she said if she sees them do it again, she's going straight to McGonagall; hazing was banned a few years ago."

"Edessa _would_ know the Hogwarts rules," Vesper said, shaking her head as she rolled her eyes.

"Was that your sister?" the first Ravenclaw boy asked, eyes flicking over Vesper's features to find similarity to Edessa's. He wouldn't find one; Vesper knew she looked most like Tisiphone, and while they had their father's hair, they looked very like their mother; Vesper had the dark-caramel skin, though, which Tisiphone didn't. That was Vesper's alone. "She said she had a first-year sister in Gryffindor."

"Yup. My sister is a _prefect_." The Ravenclaw smirked at Vesper's expression. Inspiration suddenly ignited, catching sight of a _Which __Broomstick_ magazine another Ravenclaw was reading further down their table. "Hey, why don't you ask one of the older Ravenclaws to teach you a Cushioning Charm, you know, for the next time those Slytherins try and lick you? You could put the charm on the seat of your trousers, so the paddle doesn't actually touch you."

"A Cushioning Charm?" the first boy said thoughtfully. "That's a good idea. Why aren't you in Ravenclaw?"

"Too badly-behaved," Vesper shrugged, grinning, and the Ravenclaw boys turned back to their lunches, smiling, glancing around for a kind prefect to ask about Cushioning Charms.

"Cushioning Charms—that is a good idea," James said thoughtfully. "Dunno how to do one, though."

"I saw it in one of Tisiphone's old books," Vesper said, waving a hand. "What've we got next?" she asked, speaking to no one in particular. It was Remus who answered.

"We've got an hour-long Charms lesson, then two hours out in Greenhouse One for Herbology," he said, checking his schedule. He bit his lip, as Sirius broke apart a steaming roll, dunked each half into his soup, and swallowed them whole.

"What's wrong?" James asked, already drinking his soup as if he had been stranded in the Sahara.

"I'm not very good at Herbology," he said quietly.

"You knew the names of those herbs and things hanging in Slughorn's dungeon," Sirius pointed out. Remus shifted one shoulder awkwardly.

"Anyway, nobody who hasn't been taught proper Herbology lessons will be very good at it," Vesper said fairly. "I only know things from helping Uncle Septimus tend his greenhouse, and helping the house-elves plant the kitchen-gardens. Uncle Septimus used to take us on long walks around his estate so we could find magical plants, but we never really used them, just put them in our bedrooms and classroom to decorate. I bet whatever the professor teaches us, I won't know anything about."

"And I live in London," Sirius spoke up, looking grumpy. "The closest thing we get to greenery is when my mum has company over and they bring flowers."

"I'm looking forward to Charms," James said, now doling himself a second bowl of soup. "I wonder what we'll be taught today."

"If it's only an hour-long lesson, we'll probably just be taking notes on theory," Vesper said dully, leaning her chin on her hand and watching James tear into his soup. She finished hers, glanced briefly at Tueri's crossword, felt confident she'd be able to answer all of the questions without even looking in her _Fantastic __Beasts_ textbook, and grabbed a slab of tiffin before they hauled themselves off their benches and made their way upstairs to find their Charms classroom on the third floor.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: You've had those moments in lessons when you can't stop giggling. Mine were usually Classical Civilisation lessons; _lots_ of innuendos, not to mention the funky names! Please review. I want some tiffin now…


	7. 07

**A.N.**: A little bit of mischief.

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><p><strong>Dog, Stag, Beowulf<strong>

_07_

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><p>Professor Flitwick, the Charms Master, was a tiny little man who had to stand on top of a pile of books to see over his desk. He had a squeaky voice, and was good-humoured and seemed to understand that, of all of the courses offered at Hogwarts, Charms was probably the most fun, and took it in his rather short stride that his students would get a little overexcited during his lessons.<p>

An hour-long, their lesson consisted of ice-breakers such as Professor Tueri had put them through; sharing the lesson with Ravenclaw first-years, they introduced themselves to a wider group and Vesper memorised the names of her Ravenclaw classmates, and the interesting facts they told about themselves; as their first assignment, Professor Flitwick had handed each of them a sheaf of parchment, which they were to fold three times, and taught them several extremely easy charms for special effects and colour-changing.

They had to decorate their nameplates; Vesper, Remus, Sirius and James, having already colour-coordinated their class schedules, were getting rather good at the colour-change charm, and by the end of the hour-long lesson, they came out of the classroom with vibrant nameplates sparkling and undulating with glowing colours and patterns, a few pages of notes on the charms they had used, and a reading assignment on the Levitating Charm they would be practicing in their ninety-minute lesson tomorrow.

"Greenhouse One…" Sirius murmured, frowning across the lawn as they picked their way through overgrown vegetable-patches groaning with vegetables of every kind, great tee-pees of runner- and French-beans; spreads of frilly purple lettuce, red cabbage, purple broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, potatoes; carrots of every colour; great overgrown stalks of Brussels sprouts; tall diamond trellises heaving with peas; ruby-red radishes being dug up; fat courgettes; beetroots; tomato plants; onions; the scent of garlic wafted in the air, and they passed great colourful spreads of various kitchen herbs; the greenhouses were surrounded by brambly plants hinting at blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, redcurrants and blackcurrants.

"I suppose they have to use magic to make sure there's always enough," Remus said thoughtfully.

"How long d'you reckon it takes the house-elves to shell all these peas for just one meal?" James asked, snapping a pod off as they passed, and offering around the fat little peas.

"Ah, they have their own magic to get things done," Vesper said, though she knew several house-elves who enjoyed the therapeutic process of shelling peas, and enjoyed picking blackberries. In their house, the elves cooked the dinner, but Vesper and her sisters and brother had all been taught how to bake bread and knead pastry, and they were always excused from afternoon lessons early enough that they could help dig up the vegetables they helped prepare for dinner.

"I suppose magic helps," James said.

"Not necessarily," Remus grunted, popping a pea in his mouth as he hitched his satchel higher up his shoulder. "I was reading our Transfiguration textbook, and there's some law against food. It's one of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."

"Come again?" James stared at him, looking slightly dazed.

"You can transform food, and summon it if you know where it is, and you can increase the quantity if you've already got some, but you can't conjure it out of thin air," Remus said.

"Have you already memorised our textbooks or something?" Sirius asked incredulously. Remus's cheeks flushed.

"No, I just looked at the first few chapters over the summer," he said quietly.

"Imagine how easy things would be if you have eidetic memory," Vesper sighed wistfully. "My sister Ioveta has an eidetic memory. She can glance at a page and repeat everything word for word next second."

"That's cool!" Sirius grinned.

"Yeah. She got perfect scores on all her N.E.W.T. theory exams," Vesper sighed. With six elder sisters, she had a lot to live up to, though neither Daddy nor Uncle Septimus put pressure to follow the path of any of them. They understood that each of the girls were different, had their own specific interests and dreams; the role of the parent, Daddy said, was to help provide the tools they needed to achieve their dreams, not compare one sibling to another and measure one's successes against another's.

"Greenhouse One!" Sirius called, loping over to the first of a series of greenhouses glittering in the blistering sunshine. Everything beyond the dirty, glowing glass was shrouded with green gloom, and things beyond the glass seemed to twitch and move of their own accord; Vesper was sure she heard something singing sleepily, and natural perfumes scented the air.

"Hey, looks like we're sharing this class too," James said, nudging Vesper, who was digging in her bag for her copy of _One __Thousand __Magical __Herbs __and __Fungi_, and she glanced up to see a small cluster of children their age wearing black and yellow ties approaching.

"Hufflepuffs are supposed to be quite good at Herbology, I'd heard," Sirius said. "And the professor's head of Hufflepuff, anyway. Wonder if she'll favour them."

"Well, if Vesper keeps answering her back like she did to Tueri in Defence," James snickered, "I'm sure she will prefer her own House."

"I was bringing up viable points!" Vesper protested indignantly. "The entire system of delegation to Dark status—or part-human or non-human, for that matter—is flawed."

"Alright, alright, we don't need a lecture!" Sirius barked a laugh, and as the Hufflepuffs approached, the greenhouse door opened, and a squat, cheerful-looking woman with a patched hat perched precariously on her flyaway hair, and a great deal of dirt under her fingernails and on her robes beamed out at them all.

"Excellent! All here?" she called. "Come on in, chaps! Take a pot!"

When Professor Sprout meant 'take a pot', she meant 'take a pot'! A chalkboard had been erected at the back of the greenhouse, and they walked down aisles of potting benches overflowing with plants of all kinds, shapes, colours, scents, and magical attributes; there were some normal plants, like wolfsbane, and chocolate-scented mint, snapdragons, Chinese lantern plants, gourds, and ingredients that could be grown to replenish potions stocks in the castle; but then there were cacti with spiked leaves that looked like they were made entirely of the most flawless, sparkling diamonds; other cactus varieties with brilliant blue blossoms that were furry and actually erupted something that quite resembled a little bird, chirping and twittering; there were plants that shivered, their frilly scarlet blossoms whirling like a flamenco dancer's skirts; there were enormous sunflowers the size of dinner-plates that tittered with voices like chattering mice; vibrantly-coloured miniature toadstools that hopped about and squeaked excitedly; there were enormous blue strawberries the size of watermelons that appeared to pulsate, something sparkly and fuchsia oozing from each little seed-pocket; there were delicate, feathery plants with tiny white flowers that seemed to shimmer and twinkle like stars, hidden in the darkest recesses of the leaves nearest the soil; there was a beautiful plant with veined purple leaves the size of elephant-ears, through which sunlight sifted down from the glass ceiling; there was a tray of what Vesper knew were very unique, incredibly rare flowers of glass, forget-me-nots and tiny crocuses, little yellow-trumpeted white daffodils, bluebells, yellow ranunculus, double-petal freesias and sweet-peas, that chinkled and chimed as the breeze touched them, ringing like the sound of someone running their finger around the edge of a glass; there were great daffodils the size of trumpets that actually did honk musically; flesh-eating pink fungi; an enormous bush of hydrangea blossoms, that, on closer inspection, looked to be made up of clusters of hundreds of tiny, fluttering butterfly-like petals; boughs heavy with beautiful little orchids that sang like a cherubic choir; dog-roses that wolf-whistled as they passed; vibrant plumeria that giggled coquettishly, and seemed to have tiny, smiling faces amongst their petals; a bush heavily-laden with fruit like oversized redcurrants, which dripped something that hissed and frothed when it touched the dragon-dung manure covering the beds; flowers that looked like dandelion-seeds, glowing and pulsating radiant light like the moon; a plant that resembled mint in many respects, but had large blossoms that looked like iridescent bubbles; a tiny dish of water from which billowing diaphanous leaves of dazzling icy-lilac rippled up to the ceiling, as if caught in the gentlest of sea tides; daisies sprinkled with sap that had already caught several bluebottles and an unfortunate pearl-coloured moth; and—

"Ow!" Sirius yelped, jumping and jerking his hand away from several normal-looking flowered plants.

"Mind the fanged geraniums!" Professor Sprout called. "They're teething!"

"You don't say!" Sirius griped, clamping his lips over several small but already profusely-bleeding punctures on the back of his hand, and they continued to the back of the greenhouse, where the chalkboard stood, slowly being pulled toward a flowerbed where something with vines covered in tiny, multi-coloured suction-cups and dark, evil-looking black spines had wrapped itself around one of the wooden posts; there were about twenty very large terracotta pots, upturned in a semi-circle around the chalkboard, and they took four near the edge of the group, near the fluttering hydrangea, where a small potting-bench featured several little terracotta and china pots filled with flowers and plants of different shapes, some tall, some trailing, some sturdy-looking and shiny, some diaphanous and soft like thistledown, and several trays of seedlings that seemed to make the manure glow phosphorescently.

"Where's my register? Oh, you naughty scamp!" Professor Sprout chuckled good-humouredly as she used her wand to tickle what looked like a giant purplish-orange Venus-Flytrap, dripping with sparkling sapphire sap, and chomping on a grubby scrap of parchment; the Venus-Flytrap chuckled deeply, relinquishing the scroll, and Professor Sprout cleared her throat, perching a pair of pince-nez attached to a sparkling chain on the end of her nose, as if she had done nothing more interesting than retrieve the scroll from under a pile of books. She went through the list of names, ticking them off with her wand, and tucked the grubby, folded parchment into her belt.

"Quills and ink out, please, chaps!" Professor Sprout called. "Before we get all mucky exploring, you're going to write down notes on your term project!" Glad she had brought an exercise book rather than a parchment scroll, due to having no desk to lean on, Vesper put her colour-change ink on the potting-bench beside her and opened her 'Herbology'-marked notebook to the first page.

"Now! By the end of the first term—meaning, you'll hand it in the first day back from Christmas hols—you will have studied most of the plants in this greenhouse," Professor Sprout said, gesturing around her, beaming; deep in the heart of the greenhouse, the heat from the sun had magnified, and with the twinkling, shimmering, glowing of the plants, the squeaking and giggling and flirting and singing, the hums and buzzing of bees and the flutter of butterflies' wings, the decadent scent of flowers, particular sweet fungi, the sap of fruits and the cloying, sickly-sweet smell of mouldering vegetation, it was like living in Eden. "Not to mention a good deal out in the vegetable patches—yes, the veggie-garden for the kitchens," Professor Sprout nodded, smiling good-naturedly at Sirius, who had scoffed slightly. "A great many of you will grow your own vegetables once you have homes of your own, so it's best you learn now how to cultivate your own allotment!" Again, Sirius looked dubious; living in London, Vesper wondered whether he had a garden, or even a few potted-plants in his house. "Your assignment, which you'll be working on continuously alongside other homework assignments throughout the term, is to plan your _dream __garden_. And when I say plan, I mean planting schedules, detailed plans of flowerbed arrangements, evidence of a thorough understanding of how arranging particular plants around each other will either help or hinder their growth, detail given to _why_ specific plants and flowers will be planted, and which types of compost, feed and repellents—in the form of potions, wildlife, and other plants that serve to ward off particular pests—will be used. Though the ornamental plants and flowers are, of course, entirely down to personal choice, and there is no need for justification where they're concerned."

"Professor Sprout?" one of the Hufflepuffs stuck up a tentative hand.

"Yes, Freya?"

"Will we—will we actually be…growing any of our favourite things?" the Hufflepuff asked timidly.

"'Fraid not," Professor Sprout said, though she was smiling affectionately. "That's not to say you can't take seedlings and cuttings up into the castle—s'long as they're not Venomous Tentacula or Devil's Snare or anything like that, of course. I know those of you in Hufflepuff will have seen the vast exhibition of horticulture I set up in the common-room. If you'd like, especially you Gryffindors, you're all welcome to take cuttings from any of the plants in here, once I teach you the proper method. But we'll get to that in our next session tomorrow. Today, we're just going to _explore_! How many of you have been in a greenhouse like this before?"

Only three people put their hands up—Vesper included. Professor Sprout's eyes lingered on Vesper for a minute, and she grinned. "Yes, I thought you might. Septimus does have a magnificent collection in his greenhouse, doesn't he? Very good, you'll be able to name some of the plants in here, then! Right! Papers away, please! And grab an apron. If you didn't bring your dragon-hide gloves, I've got some spare here."

Herbology was even more fascinating than the potions dungeon. Professor Sprout didn't have them take notes, but dedicated their first ever lesson to honing their interests in Herbology by playing to their still very young, childish sensitivities, investigating the greenhouse. She tickled plants that revealed bristly spines particularly favoured for ingredients in love potions and joke-sweets; cut up a fungus for them to try, which tasted like treacle; sent them crawling across the floor picking up a tray of leaping toadstools Peter Pettigrew had accidentally knocked over; gave them all tiny sips from a giant purple pitcher-orchid, a sort of syrup-like liquid that tasted and smelled differently to everyone according to the tastes and scents they loved, apparently a very potent ingredient to the potion Amortentia, the most powerful love-potion in the world; they listened to the singing orchids, and the plant with the flowers like flamenco-dancers seemed particularly flirtatious whenever Sirius and Mark Wisdom, a Hufflepuff with very pretty eyes, approached; they learned that the plant with the enormous elephant-ear-sized purple leaves was actually dragonsbane, and Professor Sprout remarked that if they looked out over the Herbology greenhouses after their midnight Astronomy lesson the follow evening, they would see the bioluminescent glow of several translucent plants that looked exactly like particularly beautiful jellyfish, which were favoured in other countries, where they weren't so rare, as children's nightlights.

"Well, there you are, chaps!" Professor Sprout said brightly, checking a battered and rather dirty pocket-watch. "Your first Herbology lesson! We'll be spending lessons on every plant in this greenhouse, so I recommend you bring coloured pencils and such for detailed drawings on phytotomy—plant anatomy, that is. You'll be submitting homework with detailed drawings and descriptions of the plants, their properties and uses, every week, with several essays thrown into the mix. Now, off you go, and start thinking of what you'd put in _your_ garden or greenhouse. I'll let you go a little early so you can grab the bathrooms for a quick wash before dinner! And don't forget to bring your dragon-hide gloves tomorrow!"

Chatting happily, eager over the exploration of the greenhouse and the prospect of dinner, they left the greenhouse grinning, very happy; Vesper had enjoyed her first day at Hogwarts to no end.

"That fungus! I thought she was trying to trick us into eating some foul discoloured mushroom!" Sirius laughed, as they flung bags over their shoulders and traversed the vegetable-patch.

"And that orchid!" James moaned delightedly. "What'd you taste when you tried it?"

"Cider, and popcorn, and sugar-plums," Vesper beamed, skipping along beside Sirius, who had undone his tie and was shoving it deep into the pocket of his robes, undoing his top button. "And…I smelled my mother's perfume, and Christmas trees, and the pipe-weed Uncle Septimus smokes."

"I tasted my mum's chicken and ham pie," Remus said; he had gained some colour in the strangely tropical heat of the greenhouse, and looked much more comfortable than he had yesterday, shy and quiet in the train compartment. "And this strawberry marshmallow tart I had once on holiday. And I smelled—" He broke off, blushing slightly.

"I tasted treacle-fudge, and I smelled…it smelled like a polished broomstick," James said dreamily, sighing. "What about you, Sirius?"

"Roast-beef dinner, and blackberry and apple pie, with custard," Sirius said softly, licking his lips as if he could still taste the syrup from the flower. "And I could smell…spices…and flowers." His cheeks coloured, too, and he glanced away from Vesper, his pale eyes taking in the Hogwarts castle.

"Well, we _were_ in a greenhouse," Vesper said, laughing, and Sirius chuckled, flashing her a wolfish grin.

"I'm starving!" James moaned, speeding up, and when they reached the Entrance Hall, they split up, Vesper traversing the corridors to the nearest girls' bathroom, the boys sourcing out the nearest boys' toilets. Vesper splashed water over her face after scrubbing her hands with soap, and found her way back downstairs to the Entrance Hall, just in time to hear the stifled but pained cries of someone in the Entrance Hall, hidden behind the marble staircase banister, just audible over the jeers and taunting and loud smacking noises that sounded rather…painful.

Her wand drawn, Vesper frowned and peered around the staircase; it was Sirius, and he was doing his level best not to cry aloud in pain, pinioned but struggling between two rather burly Slytherins, while a boy with sleek white-blonde hair and a shining Prefect badge hit him with vicious smacks of a paddle. Sirius's face was red, his eyes blazing with anger, and a little bit of humiliation, as he struggled against his captors and seemed to bite his tongue to cut off a cry as yet another blow cut to his backside.

As Vesper dashed around the corner, James and Remus exited the boys' bathroom, frowning, wands drawn and looking curious; when they saw who was getting their licks, it was like they all decided instantaneously on a plan; James glanced at Vesper, she nodded, Remus's eyes widened a little but he gripped his wand, and while James hit one of Sirius's captors with a well-placed _Tarantallegra_ curse, and Remus hit the other with a Tickling Jinx, Sirius dropped to the floor, rolling over quickly, grabbing his wand from his robes, and he hit the prefect with a curse that seemed to force porcupine quills to sprout from the boy's chest, while Vesper got him right in the face with a very powerful Bat-Bogey Hex that Tisiphone had taught her.

They may not already know the basics of Charms and what Gamp's Laws were for Transfiguration, but they had all come from magical homes and had come to Hogwarts armed with at least a theoretical knowledge of a few joke hexes.

"_Mr __Malfoy! __Stop __that __at_—_What __do __you __think __you __are __doing_?" Vesper jumped, as did Remus and James; Sirius scrambled off the floor, passing the sleeve of his robes quickly over his face, removing any evidence that his pain had caused tears to track down his cheeks, which were now flushed with more anger, more humiliation, and what seemed to be a burning desire for revenge, because despite the presence of a very angry-looking Professor McGonagall, he clutched his wand tightly, his knuckles white, and glared at the pale-haired prefect with a dangerous, slightly wolfish intensity.

Professor McGonagall's eyes flashed behind her square spectacles; her lips formed a very thin, white line. She flicked her wand and the two gormless trolls who had held Sirius stopped dancing about and wheezing with laughter; the pale-haired boy, who had been clawing his chest where the spiny protrusions had grown and screaming as great flapping winged-bogeys attacked his face, managed to pull himself up onto his elbow, shaking, running a hand over his face, his pale eyes wide and scared as he stared at his stomach, as if looking for evidence of the spines.

"You will explain yourselves immediately!" Professor McGonagall hissed dangerously.

"Professor, he—" the blonde boy began, but Vesper cut him off, sending him a dangerous glare as Sirius growled and jumped forward, held back only by James and Remus.

"That imbecile was beating Sirius, Professor," Vesper said, scooping a custom-decorated paddle from where the prefect had dropped it on the worn flagstone floor, and offering it to the professor as evidence. "And those two were holding him in place so he could do it." Professor McGonagall's shrewd eyes went from Vesper, to Sirius, to the paddle in Vesper's hand to the pale-haired boy.

"Mr Malfoy, you should know very well as prefect that hazing is strictly forbidden," Professor McGonagall said, in a quiet, calm and very deadly voice. "As for you—Travers, Yaxley—you have been warned before. Thirty points from Slytherin. I will be speaking to Professor Slughorn about appropriate punishments for each of you. Now go!" She turned to them, as the older Slytherins stalked away, glaring bloody murder at them, fuming over lost points and being trounced by first-years barely out of their first day of lessons.

"Are you alright, Black?" Professor McGonagall asked, her tone remarkably warmer.

"Yes—" Sirius cleared his throat, his voice hoarse, and Vesper saw his eyes were gleaming. "Yes, professor."

"You don't need ice, do you?" she asked. Sirius shook his head, his cheeks still flushed scarlet. "Well, I am sorry to say it, but each of you will receive a detention. We do not duel at Hogwarts—especially when you have only had one day's worth of magical education."

"Someone getting a detention?" It was Professor Sprout, peering about with a good-natured smile of curiosity. "Oh, you four, is it? What've you done, eh? I sent you off not five minutes ago to get washed up."

"We were defending our fellow first-year from underdeveloped tolls," James said passionately. "And we get a _detention_ for it."

"Yes, well, you're lucky they didn't Transfigure you into Streelers," Professor McGonagall said, and her eyes seemed to twinkle, her lips perhaps, possibly, just about managing to twitch, and Vesper bit her lip, recalling the rather giddy conversation during Potions class.

"Those Slytherins again?" Professor Sprout tutted disapprovingly. "I _told_ Horace, but he seems set that Malfoy will end up some glamorous addition to the Ministry—"

"He ought to know better," Professor McGonagall said crisply, her lips whitening again. "I shall be having a word about the kind of values Horace wishes to perpetuate amongst his students."

"Well, four for detention, and it's only the first day!" Professor Sprout exclaimed, becoming merry again after a brief but remarkably dark look with Professor McGonagall. "That ought to be some sort of record, isn't it? Mind if I take 'em, Minerva?"

"Oh, no, by all means, Pomona," Professor McGonagall said.

"Excellent. Well, chaps, dash off to dinner, and after you've finished, you're to de-gnome the gardens," Professor Sprout said happily. Professors McGonagall and Sprout made their way towards the Great Hall, followed by a now ashen Remus, and a very annoyed James. Sirius didn't move, and Vesper glanced at him, very concerned. His face was still flushed, but now the professors and Remus and James had walked on, his eyes were also shining, and—

"Sirius, you're shaking," Vesper said gently, biting her lip as she stepped closer. Sirius's expression twisted, and as he scrunched his eyes, several tears splashed down his cheeks; Vesper slipped up before him and brought him into a hug. For several moments, Sirius seemed to shake, clinging to her, his fingertips digging into her back with the strength of his hold, and she heard tiny soft sobs half-choked against her shoulder. When he had calmed himself down, the colour softening in his cheeks, he released her, and Vesper dug her handkerchief—hand-embroidered with the tiniest of blackberries, bees and her initials—out of her pocket, and reached up to gently wipe the tears from his cheeks. With a great, shaking breath, Sirius took the hanky from her with surprising gentleness, though he scrubbed at his eyes, with another heaved, shaking breath, and he ducked back into the boys' bathroom for a second, returning with her handkerchief neatly folded, his face damp from cold water.

"Are you alright?" Vesper asked softly, searching his face. He sniffed.

"_I__'__ll__–__get__–__him__–__back_," he promised darkly.

"Come on. You'll feel better after something to eat," Vesper said. _She_ always did, anyway. In her house, it was a widely-held belief that a fully belly could cure a multitude of ailments.

They crossed the worn flagstones, and as they entered the Great Hall, they saw corpulent Professor Slughorn haranguing the Slytherins who had attacked Sirius; he clipped the pale-haired boy by the ear and marched all three of them out of the Hall.

"How do you de-gnome a garden?" Sirius asked, as they walked toward where James and Remus had already claimed a bench. Vesper laughed softly, shaking her head.

"You urbane, metropolitan wizards, I don't know," she tutted, shaking her head. "No proper education whatsoever. I bet Herbology lesson was the first time you've ever got those buffed fingernails dirty."

"How do they look?" Sirius smirked, holding his hand out for her to see his nails, and Vesper chuckled and swatted playfully at his hand as they sank onto the bench opposite James and Remus.

"You alright, mate?" James asked, frowning concernedly at Sirius. He shrugged lopsidedly. "I was just trying to convince Remus here that we need to make a statement against Slytherin brutality as part of your plan for vengeance." Vesper blinked at James, then shook herself and smiled at the spread of food in front of her.

"Bubble and squeak!" she squeaked delightedly. "I _love_ bubble and squeak!" Great mounds of the butter-fried mash and leftover vegetables steamed along the table, with platters of cold meats dispersed intermittently along the table, alongside vats of baked-beans and jugs of juice, water and milk.

"So who was that git, anyway?" James asked conversationally.

"Lucius Malfoy," Sirius growled softly, doling them all out baked-beans, while Vesper and Remus fought over the last slices of cold roast-beef and chicken, their plates heaped with bubble and squeak.

"Malfoy?" Vesper frowned. "I've heard of their family. Daddy says he's surprised Abraxas Malfoy hasn't come out as Lord Voldemort's second, he's so evil." The boys had winced at Vesper saying the name aloud again.

"Looks like he's passed on his evil streak," James said grimly. "Why does Dumbledore allow that sort of scum to come to Hogwarts? Kids from families like that should be segregated, for the good of decent witches and wizards."

"Yeah—send 'em packing to Nurmengard," Vesper agreed. "Sounds like Malfoy's dad would keep very good company with Grindelwald."

"You do realise _I__'__m_ from a family like that," Sirius said dully, and Vesper and James both turned to stare at him. Vesper blinked.

"Oh yeah!"

"I forgot!" James said, looking mildly surprised at himself.

"Well, there's weirdos in every breed," Vesper said, patting Sirius's hand fondly. Sirius grinned, but he winced as he shifted in his seat, and fell quiet for a few moments. Vesper frowned concernedly at him.

"So, what _is_ a de-gnoming?" Sirius asked, and Vesper shook her head.

"Just evicting gnomes from their tunnels," she said, tucking into her dinner with surprising relish. Her brain was tired, she already had homework to do, she wanted to go to bed after getting up so early, but she had a detention—a detention, on the very first evening of the new term! "I'm surprised Professor Sprout hasn't put safeguards against pests in the gardens and vegetable-patches."

"I think that's what _we__'__re_ for," Remus said drily. "Which gardens does she intend for us to de-gnome, do you know? Or should we wait for her?"

"Finish our dinners, first," James said, "then one of us can go up and ask—not it!"

"Not it!" Sirius said quickly, and the boys both grinned.

"I'll go," Vesper said, delicately nibbling the meat off a cold chicken-drumstick. She glanced at Sirius from the corner of her eye. "Chicken." He glanced at her, loaded fork halfway to his mouth, and narrowed his eyes at her, then grinned wolfishly.

"So…!" James said, drumming his hands on the table, pursing his lips as he gazed around. "Detention our first day! And we've got that reading to do later, too."

"The de-gnoming shouldn't take that long, should it?" Remus frowned, looking a little apprehensive.

"Nah," Vesper said, helping herself to more bubble and squeak, cold brisket and baked beans. "It's actually quite fun. My record's about seventy-seven feet."

When they had eaten their fill—bubble and squeak followed by a selection of leftover desserts from the feast; Vesper and Sirius actually got down to fighting tooth and nail for the last of a gooey, chewy blackberry-and-apple pie—Vesper was nursing bite-marks on the knuckle of her left forefinger as they followed Professor Sprout back out toward the greenhouses; James was laughing and Remus peered, trying to hide a smile, at the marks on Vesper's finger, while Sirius shot her a playful glare, and she smacked her lips delightedly, tasting the last of the warm blackberries and custard.

"Now, any of you de-gnomed a garden before?" Professor Sprout asked; they had been led into the kitchen gardens that stood behind the last of the greenhouses, one wall tall, grey and crumbling, the other walls lower, made of redbrick, featuring a black-painted gate, and overgrown with plants, the gardens spreading down a gentle slope that led to part of the Forbidden Forest, the lawn marked with patches of purple heather and white-blossomed heath, the odd buttercup and a few clumps of sturdy thistle; like the greenhouses, the kitchen-gardens were largely left to their own devices, plants trailing the crumbling brick walls, beds overflowing with potato plants, herbs, edible flowers and vegetables of every kind; fruit trees lined the walls, some blossoming prettily, some stripped bare of their foliage, some twinkling with new buds, and some groaning with fruits, magic ensuring there was always a crop of each fruit at any given time.

"I have," Vesper said, and Remus nodded.

"Excellent. You'll be aiming to send them over toward the Forbidden Forest, alright; they can't do any damage there," Professor Sprout said pleasantly. "Might want to put your dragon-hide gloves on; their teeth are sharp if they catch you off-guard. Right, off you go!"

"Aren't you—aren't you supervising us?" James asked, caught off-guard.

"No indeed! Got to start marking the higher years' summer coursework, haven't I?" Professor Sprout said, sighing wearily. "My own fault, 'course."

"Well, you needn't assign us any summer work in June, if it's too much of an inconvenience to you, Professor," Vesper said sweetly, and Professor Sprout chuckled good-naturedly as she strolled back around the greenhouses.

"Er—so what d'we do?" James asked, glancing from Remus to Vesper; Vesper divested herself of her bag and robe, and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse.

"Ready, Remus?" she asked, and Remus smiled as he pushed up his sleeves and pulled his dragon-hide gloves on. "Right, just watch us first."

While Remus took a patch of potato plants, Vesper bent double over a patch of courgettes, and within a minute, a small scuffle and a shuddering of the courgette leaves, she straightened up. "_This_ is a gnome," she said, dangling the small, leathery-looking creature at arm's length. The boys' eyes widened.

"Gerroff me! Gerroff me!" the gnome squealed.

"I've got two over here," Remus called, straightening up out of the shuddering potato-plants holding two gnomes upside-down by the ankles in one hand.

"This is what you have to do, alright," Vesper said, and Remus joined her, his gnomes squealing, and they took a spot close to the redbrick wall that overlooked part of the lake and the Forbidden Forest, and together they started swinging their gnomes like they were trying to lasso something. Remus let go first, sending his gnomes sailing thirty feet before landing with soft _thumps_ in a patch of mossy heather.

"Pathetic!" Vesper laughed. "I bet I can get mine close to that patch of daffies!"

"You've only got one!"

"Quality, Remus, not quantity!" Vesper swung her gnome around one last time, and then let go, sending the gnome sailing, not high, but very far, past a patch of very early (or rather late) daffodils halfway down the hill. She saw the little brown thing roll down the hill, toward the Forbidden Forest.

James and Sirius were staring at them when Vesper turned around.

"What?" she laughed. "It doesn't _hurt_ them! You've just got to make them _really_, really dizzy, so they can't get back to the gnome-holes."

"You can't be too soft with them, either, or they'll just come straight back," Remus said sagely, scanning vegetable-beds.

"Yeah, and they're not too bright, either," Vesper snorted, gathering up no less than five gnomes that had just climbed out of a gnome-hole by a bed of rhubarb plants. "Soon as they realise a de-gnoming's going on, they storm up to have a look. See."

Soon, the air was thick with flying gnomes, mostly from Remus and Vesper; Vesper had de-gnomed the kitchen gardens and the flowerbeds at home more times than she could count; it was rarely used as a punishment in her house, though, more of a fun chore on which they placed gobstones and Chocolate Frog cards who could throw their gnomes the farthest. Sometimes Uncle Septimus would even splash a bit of paint on the gnomes' backsides before tossing them over the walls and hedges, just to mark where they had landed, to sort out any discrepancies.

"_OW_!" Sirius bellowed, his face a mask of pain and fury as he swung a gnome, which appeared to have clamped its teeth on his hand, around and around, until finally—

"Wow," Vesper said, watching the gnome's progress as it sailed over the wall. "That must've been, what, fifty feet?"

"Nice one," Remus smiled, shading his eyes from the dying sun.

"Look, they're all starting to recover a little," Vesper said, also shading her eyes, and watching the little lumpy creatures staggering in shaky zigzags toward the Forbidden Forest, their little shoulders hunched. "And they're going to the Forest. Well, Professor Sprout will be pleased that _some_ of them, at least, won't be coming back."

"Is it true there are real monsters in there?" James asked curiously, though posing the question to no one in particular.

"Well, there are rumours that there's a colony of Acromantula," Vesper said. "Edessa told me Hagrid has bred a whole herd of Thestrals. And since it's so protected, I'd suppose werewolves might find it a good place to transform on the full-moon…and there's the centaurs, of course, but they're hardly monsters… Remus, are you alright?"

"What—? Oh, yeah… Yes, I'm fine," Remus said quietly; he had gone a little pale, but hitched a smile onto his face.

"Come on, let's get this finished," James grunted, bending to peer into a bank of leeks. "Before it gets dark."

"I think we've cleared out all the gnome-holes," Vesper said.

"Hang on—there's a spell my mum uses," Remus said, the colour returning to his cheeks somewhat as he pulled out his wand. "_Pestis __Revelio_." He gave his wand a little flick. "Well," he said, looking sheepish and a little downhearted, "either there are no gnomes left, or the spell didn't work."

"Hey, we could try a Summoning Charm," Vesper said. "I read it in Edessa's textbook from last year. You just concentrate really hard on what you want to come to you, and say '_Accio_', and it should fly toward you."

"Oh, I think you're finished here," said a merry voice, and Professor Sprout came bouncing into view, looking pleased. "Watched you de-gnoming from my office." She glanced at Sirius, smiling. "Nice throw with your first, by the way. Though I certainly hope my House won't be playing against you as a Gryffindor Chaser next year."

"Nah, that's gonna be me," James said, tugging his gloves off with his teeth.

"Very good, very good!" Professor Sprout chuckled, looking happy. "Well, excellent, you've done the house-elves a chore! Now, off to Gryffindor Tower with you, and mind you don't get lost on the way up! I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow." Bidding the professor goodnight, they stuffed gloves back into bags, picked up robes, and made their way back to the castle, leaving Professor Sprout near greenhouse eight, where she proceeded to hum to several aqua and pink polka-dot seeds the size of Bludgers, which seemed to be cooing and gurgling softly, though they had no identifiable mouths.

"I'm tired," James yawned, as they traipsed across the Entrance Hall.

"I'm feeling alright, actually," Vesper said honestly. "The fresh air woke me up a bit after that dinner."

"Mm," was Sirius's contribution, and Remus yawned as they pulled their way up the marble staircase.

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><p><strong>A.N.<strong>: Please review!


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